"There is no call to tell you all his talk. He didn't seem to care about the place since Myra had gone, he said; and there did not seem to be much chance for him and his boys at the East. What he wanted to do was to take what he had and go West with them. There was the best of land to be had there cheap, and no such hard work needed, and a better climate. He knew just the place he could have out there in Wisconsin, and with a little money he could do well for his boys and himself; and he ended by asking if I would go West with him and help him do for Myra's boys? "He knew pretty well what my opinion of him was. I didn't need to say anything about that. My sister hadn't been much more than six months in her grave, and I didn't waste words upon him. But all the time it was borne in upon me that it had got to be, and that it would come to that at last. "`It isn't so much a wife that I want as a mother for Myra's children,' he said; `and I hope, when you come to think of it, you'll see it your duty to come West with them. If you change your mind, you can let me know.' "`It isn't very likely,' said I; but all the time I felt that I would be as likely to go as not. I told him I would talk over business matters with Squire Peabody, and that I would sign any papers the squire told me to sign, when the right time came; but I let him understand that I meant to have the full value of my share. It would, I thought, be as safe for Myra's boys in my hands as in his, though I didn't just say that to him. "Well, he went away, and I sat there thinking it all over, just on the spot where I sat to-day when you and the other girls were looking through Dr Justin's spy-glass; and I told myself that I hadn't much of anything to look forward to, and that, after all, I might as well do one thing as another. Life didn't seem worth much to me, but I might make my life worth something to Myra's boys. There is always duty left when hope is gone, and if I owed duty to any one, surely it was to my sister's children--so I reasoned. I would wait and see. "Well, the children came back, and had something more to eat, and sang some hymns, and then it was time to go. The boys kept close to me as we all went down to the place where the trains were waiting; and the poor little fellows cried, and did seem so forlorn when they went away, that I just couldn't get them out of my thoughts for a long time.