"Good-by?" I repeated. "How can you bid me good-by? Confound this grating! Isn't that door open?" "No," she replied, "it's locked. Do you want to shake hands with me?" "Of course I do!" I cried. "Good-by like this! It cannot be." "I think," she said quickly, "that if you could get out of your window, you might come to mine and shake hands." What a scintillating inspiration! What a girl! I had not thought of it! In a moment I had bounded out of my window, and was standing under hers, which was not four feet from the ground. There she was, with her beautiful white hand already extended. I seized it in both of mine. "Oh, Sylvia," I said, "I cannot have you go in this way. I want to tell you--I want to tell you how"-- "You are very good," she interrupted, endeavoring slightly to withdraw her hand, "and when the story of Tomaso and Lucilla is finished and printed I am going to read it, rules or no rules." "It shall never be finished," I exclaimed vehemently, "if you do not write it," and, lifting her hand, I really believe I was about to kiss it, when with a quick movement she drew it from me. "She is coming," she said; "good-by! good-by!" and with a wave of her hand she was gone from the window. I did not return to my study. I stood by the side of the house, with my fists clenched and my eyes set. Then, suddenly, I ran to the garden wall; looking over it, I saw, far down the shaded village street, two gray figures walking away. XXII. I CLOSE MY BOOK. By the rarest good fortune my grandmother started that afternoon for a visit to an old friend at the seashore, and, in the mild excitement of her departure, I do not think she noticed anything unusual in my demeanor. "And so your amanuensis has left you?" she remarked, as she was eating a hasty luncheon. "Sister Sarah stopped for a moment and told me so. She said there was another one ready to take the place, if you wanted her." I tried to suppress my feelings, but I must have spoken sharply. "Want her!" I exclaimed. "I want none of her!" My grandmother looked at me for a moment. "I shall be sorry, Horace," she said, "if you find that the sisters do not work to suit you. I hoped that you might continue to employ them, because the House of Martha is at such a convenient distance, and offers you such a variety of assistance to choose from; and also because you would contribute to a most worthy cause. You know that all the money they may make is to go to hospitals and that sort of thing." "I was a little afraid, however," she continued, after a pause, "that the sister you engaged might not suit you. She was so much younger than the others that I feared that, away from the restraints of the institution, she might be a little frivolous. Was she ever frivolous?" "Not in the least," I answered; "not for an instant."