“Shucks!” retorted Ben more emphatically than before. “You won’t do anything of the kind. Besides I’m going to adopt you for my sister, and brothers ought to take care of their sisters. When I get a raise in my salary I’ll send you to a fashionable boarding school. But I must be off, only I feel dreadfully to leave you so.” “Never mind,” said Posey bravely. “You said God took care of me to-day, perhaps He will to-morrow.” “That’s so,” answered Ben. “You and I’ll both ask Him, and I know He will. And I’ll be around to Farmdale to see you by next week, sure; so good-by till then.” And squeezing Posey’s hand till it would have brought tears to her eyes had they not been there already, he hurried away, while Posey stood at the window and watched the red cart, a grotesque object, with its dangling fringe of old rubber boots, the sacks of rags piled high on top and hiding from her view the driver, as it went down the street and slowly lessened in the distance. Then she turned away with a sigh, for Ben Pancost had passed beyond her sight. With his going the brightness seemed to fade from the day. The fallen leaves of a maple before the hotel drifted with a dreary little rustle in the rising wind. The floor of the room was covered with oilcloth on which her chair, whenever she moved it, made a mournful sound that increased her sense of loneliness. The long dining-room looked empty and forlorn when she answered the summons to supper and found herself and a traveller out of temper, because he had missed his train, its only occupants. As the dusk deepened, Posey heard the merry voices of children in the street, but she herself felt strangely old and unchildlike with a burden of anxiety resting on her, and the memory of trouble and care and perplexity rising like a cloud behind her. A kitten came capering into the room; she coaxed it to her and tried to cuddle the ball of fur in her arms, feeling even that companionship would be something; but the kitten was of a roving nature and had rather have its own frolicsome way than her tending. When the kerosene lamp was brought in it smoked, and through the dingy chimney the big figured paper and the cheap chromos on the wall looked more staring than before. Posey during her years with Madam Sharpe had known a varied experience with the parlors of cheap hotels and boarding-houses with their threadbare carpets and shabby, broken-springed furniture, but she was sure that she never saw so cheerless a room as that of the Byfield hotel.