"No, no; 'Mr. Worth.' I shall love you none the less by honoring you more. And with me you are henceforth 'Mr. Worth.'" "As you please, professor. But I hope it has been well with you all these years?" "Come in, Mr. Worth, and sit down and I will tell you." The professor led the way into the humble dwelling. It was as neat as ever, with its sanded floor, flag-bottom chairs, and pine tables,--all of the professor's manufacture,--and its bright tinware and clean crockery ranged in order on its well scrubbed shelves. But its look of solitude struck a chill upon Ishmael's spirits. "Where are they all, professor?" he inquired. "Gone, Mr. Worth," answered Morris solemnly, as he placed a chair for his guest. "Gone! not dead!" exclaimed Ishmael, dropping into the offered seat. "Not all dead, but all gone," answered the professor sadly, letting himself sink into a seat near Ishmael. "Your wife?" inquired the young man. "There--and there," answered the professor, pointing first down and then up; "her body is in the earth; her soul in heaven, I hope." "And your daughters, professor?" inquired Ishmael, in a voice of sympathy. "Both married, Mr. Worth. Ann Maria married Lewis Digges, old Commodore Burghe's boy that he set free before he died, and they have moved up to Washington to better themselves, and they're doing right well, as I hear. He drives a hack and she clear starches. They have three children, two girls and a boy. I have never seen one of them yet." "And your other daughter?" "Mary Ellen? She married Henry Parsons, a free man, by trade a blacksmith, and they live in St. Inigoes. They have one child, a boy. I haven't seen them either since they have been married." "And you are quite alone?" said Ishmael, in a tender voice "Quite alone, young Ishmael," answered the professor, who forgot on this occasion to call his sometime pupil Mr. Worth. "And how is business, professor?" "Business has fallen off considerably; indeed I may say it has fallen off altogether." "I am very sorry to hear it. How is that, professor?" "Why, you see, Mr. Worth, its falling off is the natural result of time and progress, of which I cannot complain, and at which I ought to rejoice. It was all very well for the neighborhood to patronize a Jack of all trades like me when there was nothing better to be had; but now you see there are lots of regular mechanics been gradually coming down and settling here--carpenters and stone-masons and painters and glaziers and plumbers and tinners and saddlers and shoemakers, and what not. Law, why you might have seen their signs as you rode through Baymouth." "I did." "Well, you see these mechanics, they have journeymen and apprentices with their trades at their fingers' ends, and they can do their work not only easier and quicker and better than I can, but even cheaper. So I cannot complain that they have taken the custom of the neighborhood from me."