'Twas Margaret's time now, for Ned was not present. There was a pause, as Phil turned questioningly--nay wistfully--toward her. She met his look calmly. Old Noah and some of the negroes, who had pressed forward to see Phil's departure from the house, were waiting for her to speak, that they might afterward call out their Godspeed. "Good-bye!" she said, at last, holding out her hand indifferently. He took the hand, bent over it, pressed it with his lips. Then he looked at her again. I think she must have shown just the slightest yielding, given just the least permission, in her eyes; for he went nearer, and putting his arm around her, gently drew her close to him, and looked down at her. Suddenly she turned her face up, and pursed her lips. With a look of gladness, he passionately kissed her. "God bless you, my dear wife," he whispered; and then, as if by expecting more he might court a disappointment to mar the memory of that leave-taking, he released her, and said to us all: "Take care of her, I pray!" whereupon, abruptly turning, he hastened out of the open door, waving back his hat in response to our chorus of good-byes, and the loud "Go' bless you, Massa Philip!" of the negroes. We followed quickly to the porch, to look after him. But he strode off so fast that Cornelius had to run to keep up with him. He did not once look back, even when he passed out of sight at the street corner. I believe he divined that his wife would not be among those looking after, and that he wished not to interpose any other last impression of his dear home than that of her kiss. When we came back into the hall, she had flown. Later, as my mother and I went through the garden homeward, passing beneath Margaret's open windows, we heard her weeping--not violently, but steadily, monotonously, as if she had a long season of the past to regret, a long portion of the future to sorrow for. And here let me say that I think Margaret, from first to last, loved Philip with more tenderness than she was capable of bestowing upon any one else; with an affection so deep that sometimes it might be obscured by counter feelings playing over the surface of her heart, so deep that often she might not be conscious of its presence, but so deep that it might never be uprooted:--and 'twas that which made things the more pitiful. Tom and I went out, with a large number of the town's people, to watch the rebel soldiers depart, and we saw Philip with his company, and exchanged with him a smile and a wave of the hat. How little we thought that one of us he was never to meet again, that the other he was not to see in many years, and that four of those years were to pass ere he should set foot again in Queen Street.