“Can't you come out at all?” Rannie urged. “Go ask your mother. Tell her--” “How can I,” Jane inquired, with a little heat, “when she isn't here to ask? She's gone out to play cards--she and papa.” Rannie swung her foot. “Well,” she said, “I guess I haf to find SOMEp'n to do! G' night!” With head bowed in thought she moved away, disappearing into the gray dusk, while Jane, on her part, left the window and went to the open front door. Conscientiously, she did not cross the threshold, but restrained herself to looking out. On the steps of the porch sat William, alone, his back toward the house. “Willie?” said Jane, softly; and, as he made no response, she lifted her voice a little. “Will-ee!” “Whatchwant!” he grunted, not moving. “Willie, I told mamma I was sorry I made you feel so bad.” “All right!” he returned, curtly. “Well, when I haf to go to bed, Willie,” she said, “mamma told me because I made you feel bad I haf to go up-stairs by myself, to-night.” She paused, seeming to hope that he would say something, but he spake not. “Willie, I don't haf to go for a while yet, but when I do--maybe in about a half an hour--I wish you'd come stand at the foot of the stairs till I get up there. The light's lit up-stairs, but down around here it's kind of dark.” He did not answer. “Will you, Willie?” “Oh, all RIGHT!” he said. This contented her, and she seated herself so quietly upon the floor, just inside the door, that he ceased to be aware of her, thinking she had gone away. He sat staring vacantly into the darkness, which had come on with that abruptness which begins to be noticeable in September. His elbows were on his knees, and his body was sunk far forward in an attitude of desolation. The small noises of the town--that town so empty to-night--fell upon his ears mockingly. It seemed to him incredible that so hollow a town could go about its nightly affairs just as usual. A man and a woman, going by, laughed loudly at something the man had said: the sound of their laughter was horrid to William. And from a great distance from far out in the country--there came the faint, long-drawn whistle of an engine. That was the sorrowfulest sound of all to William. His lonely mind's eye sought the vasty spaces to the east; crossed prairie, and river, and hill, to where a long train whizzed onward through the dark--farther and farther and farther away. William uttered a sigh, so hoarse, so deep from the tombs, so prolonged, that Jane, who had been relaxing herself at full length upon the floor, sat up straight with a jerk. But she was wise enough not to speak. Now the full moon came masquerading among the branches of the shade-trees; it came in the likeness of an enormous football, gloriously orange. Gorgeously it rose higher, cleared the trees, and resumed its wonted impersonation of a silver disk. Here was another mockery: What was the use of a moon NOW? Its use appeared straightway.