“‘He was a missionary,’ says she, real solemn; ‘a missionary; and that’s what I’m going to be; and you’ll take me out there in your ship, won’t you, cap’n?’ says she. ‘And oh, I’m goin’ to take a whole trunk full of story-books for all those poor little girls that have to get married and don’t have any.’ “Wal, wal,” he continued, as he filled his pipe, “she begun it young, ’n I warn’t a mite surprised when I heerd she’d got her money and see what she was a-beginnin’ to do for those nasty Italians down to the Mulberry Bend. She never forgits anybody, Millie don’t. Excuse me, I s’pose I orter say Mis’ Everett now. She’s been a-talkin’ to me about the sailors; says when we git out to sea she wants a long talk with me about ’em; wants to know what they read, and everything of that sort.” “And that is the way she proposes to turn pagan,” I soliloquized. The last day had come, and we were on board the ship. Mildred, in her long, gray ulster and bright steamer hood, paced the deck arm in arm with me, taking her last look at the bridge, the towers and spires, the bronze goddess looming up against the blue, and all the dear, familiar sights. The sky was cloudless; the soft south-wind gently swelled the white sails overhead; the sea, the fawning, treacherous sea, shone brilliantly in the golden sunlight and seemed to murmur caressingly in our ears, as if to beguile us to forget its cruel power hidden for the time under this shining mask. We paced up and down in silence, breaking it now and then by trying to say the last words, which were so hard to speak. Ralph had kindly gone below, ostensibly to look after a hamper of fruit. There was a lump in my throat; I could not speak. How was it that this woman, whom I had met but little more than a year ago, had come to be nearer to me than any kith or kin? Life had broadened, had grown rich, since her life had come into mine. In my little narrow routine, fashioned according to the demands of society and its conventionalities, I had never before dreamed of its possibilities. Mildred tried to talk, but I could not answer. At last, breaking down completely, I sobbed out, “Oh, Mildred, Mildred, I _cannot_ let you go. I have no one in the wide world but you. You will never, never come back.” I had meant to be brave and not to sadden these last moments by my selfish grief, but a sudden premonition of evil had taken hold of me. I was not superstitious, but I felt a convulsive clutch at my heart as I looked up into her beautiful dark eyes through the mist in my own. “Don’t be morbid, darling,” said she, trying to speak cheerfully, and drawing my arm closer in her embrace. But her voice sounded to me strange and far away.