'God bless you, dear! Good-bye!'
'God bless you, dear! Good-bye!'
They kissed each other fervently.
'Now, please take me home, Eddy, and let me be by myself.'
'Don't look round, Rosa,' he cautioned her, as he drew her arm
through his, and led her away. 'Didn't you see Jack?'
'No! Where?'
'Under the trees. He saw us, as we took leave of each other. Poor
fellow! he little thinks we have parted. This will be a blow to
him, I am much afraid!'
She hurried on, without resting, and hurried on until they had
passed under the gatehouse into the street; once there, she asked:
'Has he followed us? You can look without seeming to. Is he
behind?'
'No. Yes, he is! He has just passed out under the gateway. The
dear, sympathetic old fellow likes to keep us in sight. I am
afraid he will be bitterly disappointed!'
She pulled hurriedly at the handle of the hoarse old bell, and the
gate soon opened. Before going in, she gave him one last, wide,
wondering look, as if she would have asked him with imploring
emphasis: 'O! don't you understand?' And out of that look he
vanished from her view.
CHAPTER XIV--WHEN SHALL THESE THREE MEET AGAIN?
Christmas Eve in Cloisterham. A few strange faces in the streets;
a few other faces, half strange and half familiar, once the faces
of Cloisterham children, now the faces of men and women who come
back from the outer world at long intervals to find the city
wonderfully shrunken in size, as if it had not washed by any means
well in the meanwhile.
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