Abraham was up betimes in the morning to greet a day crisp and cold, quiet, yet with sufficient breeze stirring the evergreens in the yard outside to make him predict a speedy voyage.

The old man was nervous and excited, and, in spite of his buoyant anticipations, somewhat oppressed, now that the day had actually come, with a sense of timidity and fear. Still, he put on a bold face while Angeline fastened his refractory collar and tied his cravat.

This was neither Mrs. Roman's offering nor Abe's own old, frayed tie, but a new black one which had mysteriously been thrust through the crack under the door during the night.

So, the last finishing touches having been put upon his toilet, and Angy having made ready by lamplight for her own trip, even before the old man was awake, there seemed nothing left to be done until the breakfast bell should ring.

Abe sat down, and looking hard at his open carpet-bag wondered audibly if they had "everythin' in." The last time they two had packed Abe's wardrobe for a visit to Bleak Hill had been many years ago, when Samuel Darby, though somewhat Abe's junior, was keeper of the Life-saving Station, and Abe was to be gone for a whole season's duty. Then all of his possessions had been stowed in a long, bolster-like canvas bag for the short voyage.

Both Angy and her husband recalled that time now—the occasion of their first, and almost of their last, real separation.

"A week'll pass in no time," murmured Angy very quickly, with a catch in her voice. "Lookin' ahead, though, seven days seems awful long when yer old; but—Oh, law, yes; a week'll pass in no time," she repeated. "Only dew be keerful, Abe, an' don't take cold."

She perched herself on her little horsehair trunk which she had packed to take to Blossy's, looking in her time-worn silk gown like a rusty blackbird, and, like a bird, she bent her head first to one side and then the other, surveying Abe in his "barrel clothes" with a critical but complimentary eye.

"Wonder who made that necktie?" she questioned. "I'll bet yer 't was Aunt Nancy; she's got a sharp tongue, but a lot of silk pieces an' a tender spot in her heart fer yew, Abe. Ruby Lee says she never thought yew'd bring her around; yew're dretful takin' in yer ways, Father, thar's no use a-talkin'."

Abraham glanced at himself in the glass, and pulled at his beard, his countenance not altogether free from a self-conscious vanity.

"I hain't sech a bad-lookin' feller when I'm dressed up, be I, Mother? I dunno ez it's so much fer folks ter say I look like Abe Lincoln, after all; he was dretful humbly."

"Father," Angy said coaxingly, "why don't yer put some o' that air 'sweet stuff' Miss Abigail give yer on yer hair? She'll feel real hurt ef she don't smell it on yer when yew go down-stairs."

Abe made a wry face, took up the tiny bottle of "Jockey Club," and rubbed a few drops on his hands. His hands would wash, and so he could find some way of removing the odor before he reached the station and—the men.

"I'll be some glad ter git away from these here fussy old hens fer a spell," he grumbled, as he slammed the vial back on the bureau; but Angy looked so reproachful and grieved that he felt ashamed of his ingratitude, and asked with more gentleness:

"Yew goin' ter miss me, Mother?"

Then the old wife was ashamed to find herself shaking of a sudden, and grown wretchedly afraid—afraid of the separation, afraid of the "hardening" process, afraid of she knew not what.

"I'm glad 't ain't goin' ter be fer all winter this time," she said simply; then arose to open the door in order that he might not see the rush of tears to her foolish, old eyes.

According to the arrangement, Captain Darby was to drive over from Twin Coves with his hired man, and Ezra, after taking the two old men to the bay, was to return to the Home for Angy and her little trunk.

When Samuel drove up to the front door, he found Abe pacing the porch, his coat-collar turned up about his neck, his shabby fur cap pulled over his brow, his carpet-bag on the step, and, piled on the bench at the side of the door, an assortment of woolen articles fully six feet high, which afterward developed to be shawls, capes, hoods, comforters, wristlets, leggings, nubias, fascinators, guernseys, blankets, and coats.

Abe was fuming and indignant, scornful of the contributions, and vowing that, though the sisters might regard a scooter as a freight ocean-liner, he would carry nothing with him but what he wore and his carpet-bag.

"An' right yer be," pronounced Samuel, with a glance at the laden bench and a shake of his head which said as plainly as words, "Brother, from what am I not delivering thee?"

The sisters came bustling out of the door, Mrs. Homan in the lead, Angy submerged in the crowd, and from that moment there was such a fuss, so much excitement, so many instructions and directions for the two adventurers, that Abraham found himself in the carriage before he had kissed Angy good-by.

He had shaken hands, perhaps not altogether graciously, with every one else, even with the deaf-and-dumb gardener who came out of his hiding-place to witness the setting-out. Being dared to by all the younger sisters, he had waggishly brushed his beard against Aunt Nancy Smith's cheek, and then he had taken his place beside Samuel without a touch or word of parting to his wife.

He turned in his seat to wave to the group on the porch, his eyes resting in a sudden hunger upon Angeline's frail, slender figure, as he remembered. She knew that he had forgotten in the flurry of his leave-taking, and she would have hastened down the steps to stop the carriage; but all the old ladies were there to see, and she simply stood, and gazed after the vehicle as it rolled away slowly behind the jog trot of Samuel's safe, old calico-horse. She stood and looked, holding her chin very high, and trying to check its unsteadiness.

A sense of loneliness and desolation fell over the Home. Piece by piece the sisters put away all the clothing they had offered in vain to Abe. They said that the house was already dull without his presence. Miss Abigail began to plan what she should have for dinner the day of his return.

No one seemed to notice Angy. She felt that her own departure would create scarcely a stir; for, without Abraham, she was only one of a group of poor, old women in a semi-charity home.

Slowly she started up the stairs for her bonnet and the old broche shawl. When she reached the landing, where lay the knitted mat of the three-star pattern, the matron called up to her in tragic tones:

"Angy Rose, I jest thought of it. He never kissed yew good-by!"

Angy turned, her small, slender feet sinking deep into one of the woolly stars, her slim figure encircled by the light from the upper hall window. She saw a dozen faces uplifted to her, and she answered with quiet dignity:

"Abe wouldn't think of kissin' me afore folks."

Then quickly she turned again, and went to her room—their room—where she seated herself at the window, and pressed her hand against her heart which hurt with a new, strange, unfamiliar pain, a pain that she could not have shown "afore folks."