'So good-by, aunty,' said I, as I finished, in a tone tremulous with weakness and wrath; '_you_ love me, if Dora does not, and _you_ will remember me kindly I know.' I wrung her hand and kissed her cheek, but she never shed a tear; she had been wont to weep like a watering pot when I went back to school or college after a visit, and I had always left her, loaded with biscuits and blessings, thankless prodigal that I was! and disposed to laugh at her display of maternal sorrow. How grateful to my wounded and sorrowful spirit, my outraged heart, would such a demonstration of love now have been! but all were alike heartless and cold to-day, and she smiled serenely under my parting kiss, and said, as I ran down the steps, 'Promise me not to go before you are well rested in the morning, Georgy; the coach does not pass through till eleven, and you'll come back, if I have occasion to send for you--before then--professionally?' I bowed assent; what could I do? and, cut to the heart, went slowly and wearily home. I do not know how or by which way I arrived there, or whom or what I passed upon the road; I saw nothing but the darkness of my fortune, and felt nothing but the terrible sorrow that consumed my heart. Phil was astonished at the gentleness of the reproof he received for being discovered with a crowd of young vagabonds playing pitch-penny in my very office; but I was too broken in spirit to administer justice on him--how could I expect him to be true when all others were faithless?--and quite subdued and conscience-stricken he waited upon me assiduously, till my last bottle was packed at midnight and I sent him to bed, with orders to call me at sunrise. The stage came through at eleven, and I usually rose at nine; but I scorned to comply with my aunt's injunction, to take my ordinary rest, and was bent upon the additional misery of rising early in the morning. What weary, dreary hours! I heard every one of them strike, as I lay tossing on the patent spring mattress, in that darkly shaded and sacredly secluded room, where I was wont to sleep the sleep of the sluggard, until I saw the day break, for the first time in my life, I think, and the novelty put me to sleep, and thence into a dismal dream, from which I was awakened by a tremendous thumping at the office-door, and the shrill voice of my Phil, in communication with the person outside. 'I shan't open the door for nobody,' that faithful janitor was announcing, 'and if you don't stop knockin' on it, I'll come out and make ye. He's asleep, I tell yer; goin' away to-day, and wants to get up in time for the stage, but I shall let him oversleep hisself, and he'll think better of it by to-morrow. Come this afternoon if you want to see him; that'll do for _you_.'