Something closely akin to grief was visible in the little cottage at Bramleigh, even at daybreak, on that gloomy morning which had been fixed upon for Colin's departure. It was yet some hours before the time at which he should go; for his mother and Fanny had risen with the first dawn of light, in order to have everything for him in a state of preparation. Few words were exchanged between them as they went mechanically about their household work; but each looked serious, as though the day was bringing sorrow at its close: and now and then the lifting of Fanny's clean white apron to her eyes, or the sudden and unconscious fall of big tears upon her hands, as she kneeled to whiten the little hearthstone of the house, betrayed the presence of feelings in her bosom which put a seal upon the tongue, and demanded the observance of silence to keep them pent within their trembling prison-place. The mother, whose heart was more strongly fortified with the hope of her boy's well-doing, felt not so deeply; though the uppermost thoughts in her mind were yet of him, and of this change. To-morrow he would be gone. How she should miss his open heart and voluble tongue, which were wont to make her forget all the miseries she had endured on his account! She would no longer have need to lay the nightly pillow for him; nor to call him in the morning again to another day of life and action. The house would seem desolate without him; and she and Fanny would have to learn how to be alone. His little box of clothes was now carefully packed up; and amongst them Fanny laid a few trifling articles, all she could, which had been bought, unknown to any one, with the few shillings which had been hoarded up through a long season. These, she thought, might surprise him at some unexpected moment with the memory of home, and of those he had left there; when, perhaps, the treatment he might receive from others would render the memory of that home a welcome thing. A small phial of ink, three penny ready-made pens, and half a quire of letter-paper, formed part of Fanny's freightage: as she intended that, in case he could not return often enough on a visit to them of some few hours, he should at least write to tell them how he fared. When she was about completing these arrangements Colin entered the room, in high spirits at the anticipated pleasures of his new mode of existence. “Is it all ready, Fanny?” he asked; at the same time picking up one end of the cord by which the box was to be bound. “Yes,” she briefly replied; accompanying that single monosyllable with a sudden and convulsive catching of the breath, which told of an overladen bosom better than any language. “Then I shall go very soon,” coolly observed Colin,--“there is no good in stopping if everything is ready.”