My last day at Elm Close came swiftly and surely, and the sun rose, and went pitilessly up into the heavens, and sank down behind White Horse Hill, and the clocks went on striking one after another, just as if it had been any other day. What a number of things I had in my head that morning to say to all of them, and above all to her; but one thing or another interfered, and I had said not one quarter of them, and these not in the way I had intended, before it was dark, and tea on the table. But I did go all round the farm and the village, and took a last look at every field and nook and corner where I had been so happy. The old lady was unusually talkative at tea, and for some time afterwards. The fact that I was not going to leave the house till after midnight, and was to be at business, in London, at nine o’clock the next morning, now that she had realized it, excited her very much, and waked up all sorts of recollections of her own travels; particularly how, when she was a child, she had been a whole day getting to Reading by the stage, and how, even after her marriage, she and father had had to sleep at Windsor, on the occasion of their one visit to London. I was watching Miss Lucy at her work all the time, and thought she seemed a little absent and sorrowful, and when our eyes met every now and then, she looked away directly. We hardly said a word, and left Joe to keep up the talk with the old lady. Before long she got tired and went off to bed, and then, I thought, if something would only call Joe out--but nothing happened, and so we sat on talking commonplaces, till prayer time; which, however, Joe did consent to put off this evening, because it was my last, till past ten o’clock. The three servants came in, and knelt down as usual; and I, in a place where I could see her, and watch every turn of her figure, and hear every breath she drew. I own I didn’t listen to a word that Joe read--I couldn’t--and I don’t believe any poor fellow in my state will ever be hardly judged, whatever square-toed people may say, for not forcing himself to attend when he hasn’t the power to do it. I only know that, though I couldn’t listen to the prayers, I could and did thank God for having brought me down there, and allowed me to see her and know her; and prayed, as heartily as was in me to pray, that I might never do any thing which might make me unworthy of one so bright, and pure, and good as she. And too soon Joe shut the book, and got up, and the servants went out, and Joe dived off into the recess; and she lighted her candle and came up to me, holding out her hand, but without saying any thing, or looking up in my face. I took the hand which she held out to me in both mine, but somehow, when I thought it might be for the last time, I couldn’t let it go. So I stood holding it, my heart beating so that I couldn’t speak, and feeling very uncomfortable about the throat. She didn’t take it away, and presently I got my voice again.