"Amusing myself a little;--well, unless somebody died, you said? But I believe I won't talk any more to-night. My head aches. Go home, Del." Del muttered a weak protest at leaving her there alone; but, with her bright face clouded and uncomfortable, went. Asenath turned her head to listen for the last rustle of her dress, then folded her arms, and, with her eyes upon the sluggish current, sat still. An hour and a half later, an Andover farmer, driving home across the bridge, observed on the river's edge--a shadow cut within a shadow--the outline of a woman's figure, sitting perfectly still with folded arms. He reined up and looked down; but it sat quite still. "Hallo there!" he called; "you'll fall in if you don't look out!" for the wind was strong, and it blew against the figure; but it did not move nor make reply. The Andover farmer looked over his shoulder with the sudden recollection of a ghost-story which he had charged his grandchildren not to believe last week, cracked his whip, and rumbled on. Asenath began to understand by and by that she was cold, so climbed the bank, made her way over the windy flats, the railroad, and the western bridge confusedly with an idea of going home. She turned aside by the toll-gate. The keeper came out to see what she was doing, but she kept out of his sight behind the great willow and his little blue house,--the blue house with the green blinds and red moulding. The dam thundered that night, the wind and the water being high. She made her way up above it, and looked in. She had never seen it so black and smooth there. As she listened to the roar, she remembered something that she had read--was it in the Bible or the Ledger?--about seven thunders uttering their voices. "He's sorry for her, and all that," they said. A dead bough shot down the current while she stood there, went over and down, and out of sight, throwing up its little branches like helpless hands. It fell in with a thought of Asenath's, perhaps; at any rate she did not like the looks of it, and went home. Over the bridge, and the canal, and the lighted streets, the falls called after her: "He's sorry for her, and all that." The curtain was drawn aside when she came home, and she saw her father through the window, sitting alone, with his gray head bent. It occurred to her that she had often left him alone,--poor old father! It occurred to her, also, that she understood now what it was to be alone. Had she forgotten him in these two comforted, companioned years? She came in weakly, and looked about. "Dick's in, and gone to bed," said the old man, answering her look. "You're tired, Senath." "I am tired, father."