watched until pony and rider had disappeared in the forest.

Later Aunt Mollie, with a woman's fondness for a quiet chat,
brought the potatoes she was preparing for dinner, to sit with Mr.
Howitt on the porch. "I declare I don't know what we'll do without
Sammy," she said; "I just can't bear to think of her goin' away."

The guest, feeling that some sort of a reply was expected, asked,
"Is the family moving from the neighborhood?"

"No, sir, there ain't no family to move. Just Sammy and her Pa,
and Jim Lane won't never leave this country again. You see Ollie
Stewart's uncle, his father's brother it is, ain't got no children
of his own, and he wrote for Ollie to come and live with him in
the city. He's to go to school and learn the business, foundry and
machine shops, or something like that it is; and if the boy does
what's right, he's to get it all some day; Ollie and Sammy has
been promised ever since the talk first began about his goin'; but
they'll wait now until he gets through his schoolin'. It'll be
mighty nice for Sammy, marryin' Ollie, but we'll miss her awful;
the whole country will miss her, too. She's just the life of the
neighborhood, and everybody 'lows there never was another girl
like her. Poor child, she ain't had no mother since she was a
little trick, and she has always come to me for everything like,
us bein' such close neighbors, and all. But law! sir, I ain't a
blamin' her a mite for goin', with her Daddy a runnin' with that
ornery Wash Gibbs the way he does."

Again the man felt called upon to express his interest; "Is Mr.
Lane in business with this man Gibbs?"