When I went in again the little house had suddenly grown
lonely, and my room looked empty as it had the day I came. I and
all my belongings had died out of it, and I knew how it would seem
when Mrs. Todd came back and found her lodger gone. So we die
before our own eyes; so we see some chapters of our lives come to
their natural end.
I found the little packages on the kitchen table. There was
a quaint West Indian basket which I knew its owner had valued, and
which I had once admired; there was an affecting provision laid
beside it for my seafaring supper, with a neatly tied bunch of
southernwood and a twig of bay, and a little old leather box which
held the coral pin that Nathan Todd brought home to give to poor
Joanna.
There was still an hour to wait, and I went up the hill just
above the schoolhouse and sat there thinking of things, and looking
off to sea, and watching for the boat to come in sight. I could
see Green Island, small and darkly wooded at that distance; below
me were the houses of the village with their apple-trees and bits
of garden ground.
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