“I can’t come quite so near it as that,” said Alice, “but I will sing ‘’Twas within a mile.’” She sang that, and then “Down the burn Davie.”  Then Miss Janet proposed ‘Auld lang syne,’ in which they all joined; in singing the chorus, Mr. Barbour, as usual, got very much excited, and Alice a little tired, so that the music ceased and Alice took her seat by her uncle on the sofa.

“Miss Janet,” said Mr. Barbour, “you look better than I have seen you for a long time.”

“Thank you,” said Miss Janet.  “Mr. Washington asked me the other day if I were ever going to die.  I suppose, like Charles II., I ought to apologize for being so long in dying; but I am so comfortable and happy with my friends, that I do not think enough of the journey I soon must take to another world.  How many comforts I have, and how many kind friends!  I feel now that we are about to be separated, that I should thank you all for your goodness to me, lest in the Providence of God we should not meet again.  Silver and gold have I none, but such as I have, my poor thanks are most gratefully offered.”

“Oh!  Cousin Janet,” said Alice, with her eyes full of tears, “why will you not go with us; your talking so makes me dread to part with you.”

“My darling, we must all try to get to Heaven, where there are no partings.  I cannot be a great while with you; remember, I am eighty-five years old.  But I will not grieve you.  We will, I trust, all meet here in the spring.  God is here, and He is in the great city; we are all safe beneath His care.  Next summer He will bring Arthur home again.”

“Partings should be as short as possible,” said Mr. Barbour.  “So I mean to shake hands with everybody, and be off.  Young ladies, be generous; do not carry havoc and desolation in your train; take care of your uncle, and come back again as soon as possible.”

He then took a friendly leave of Mr. and Mrs. Weston, and mounted his horse to return home.

“What a nice old beau Mr. Barbour would make,” said Ellen, “with his fine teeth and clear complexion.  I wonder he never married.”

“Upon my word!” said Miss Janet, “you will be wondering next, why I never married.  But know, Miss Ellen, that Mr. Barbour once had a romantic love-affair—­he was to have been married to a lovely girl, but death envied him his bride, and took her off—­and he has remained true to her memory.  It was a long time before he recovered his cheerfulness.  For two years he was the inmate of an asylum.”

“Poor old gentleman,” said Ellen.  “I do believe other people besides me have trouble.”

“Ah! when you look around you, even in the world, which you anticipate with so much pleasure, you will see many a smiling face that tries to hide a sad and aching heart; a heart that has ached more painfully than yours.”

“No,” said Ellen, looking up from the ottoman at Miss Janet’s feet, where she was seated; and then bursting into tears.  “Oh! thoughtless and frivolous as I am, I shall never forget him.  If you knew how I have wept and suffered, you would not wonder I longed for any change that would make me forget.”