too; and when it was done--when all was ready for my departure on
the morrow, and the last night at home approached--a sudden anguish
seemed to swell my heart. My dear friends looked so sad, and spoke
so very kindly, that I could scarcely keep my eyes from
overflowing: but I still affected to be gay. I had taken my last
ramble with Mary on the moors, my last walk in the garden, and
round the house; I had fed, with her, our pet pigeons for the last
time--the pretty creatures that we had tamed to peck their food
from our hands: I had given a farewell stroke to all their silky
backs as they crowded in my lap. I had tenderly kissed my own
peculiar favourites, the pair of snow-white fantails; I had played
my last tune on the old familiar piano, and sung my last song to
papa: not the last, I hoped, but the last for what appeared to me
a very long time. And, perhaps, when I did these things again it
would be with different feelings: circumstances might be changed,
and this house might never be my settled home again. My dear
little friend, the kitten, would certainly be changed: she was
already growing a fine cat; and when I returned, even for a hasty
visit at Christmas, would, most likely, have forgotten both her
playmate and her merry pranks. I had romped with her for the last
time; and when I stroked her soft bright fur, while she lay purring
herself to sleep in my lap, it was with a feeling of sadness I
could not easily disguise. Then at bed-time, when I retired with
Mary to our quiet little chamber, where already my drawers were
cleared out and my share of the bookcase was empty--and where,
hereafter, she would have to sleep alone, in dreary solitude, as
she expressed it--my heart sank more than ever: I felt as if I had
been selfish and wrong to persist in leaving her; and when I knelt
once more beside our little bed, I prayed for a blessing on her and
on my parents more fervently than ever I had done before. To