He went to the curtainless window and looked in. The stove was there, red with rust; two packing-boxes stood on the floor, and from one of those protruded Libby Anne's plaid dress. Through the open bedroom door he could see Libby Anne's muslin hat hanging on the opposite wall. It looked appealingly at him through the cold silence of the deserted house. His first thought was that Libby Anne and her mother had gone East, but as the furniture was still in the house, and the boxes of clothing, this thought had to be abandoned. But where were they? Why were Libby Anne's clothes here? Just then Bud noticed the little hand-sleigh that he had made for Libby Anne, standing idly behind the stove, and it brought to his eyes a sudden rush of tears--his little girl was dead; the little girl who had loved him. He remembered how she had clung to him that night he came to say good-bye, and begged him to come back, and now, when he came back, there was only the muslin hat and the sleigh and the plaid dress to tell him that he was too late! Bud retraced his steps sadly to the road and made his way to the schoolhouse, which lay straight on his road home. In his anxiety for Libby Anne, he forgot about it being the hour for service. The schoolyard was blown clean and bare. In the woodpile he noticed "shinney-sticks" where their owners had put them for safe-keeping--he knew all the "hidie-holes," though it was years and years since he had played "shinney" here. His boyhood seemed separated from him by a wide gulf. Since leaving home he had been to church but seldom, for Bud made the discovery that many another young man makes, that the people who go to church and young people's meetings are not always as friendly as the crowd who frequent the pool-rooms and bars. Bud had been hungry for companionship, and he had found it, but in places that did not benefit him morally. The minister's cutter, in front of the shed, called to his remembrance the fact that this was the hour for service, which no doubt was going on now. "It's a wonder they still keep it up," he thought, rather contemptuously. It seemed the most natural thing in the world for him to go into the porch--he, would hear what was going on, anyway, and perhaps he could see if Mrs. Cavers were there. Suddenly some one began to sing--the voice was strange, and yet familiar, like something had heard long, long, ago. When he realized that it was Mrs. Cavers he was listening to, a sudden impulse seized him to rush in. Libby Anne must be there beside her mother--she was always beside her. "was it for crimes that I have done, He groaned upon the tree?" Mrs. Cavers was singing alone, it seemed, in her sweet thin voice. "Oh, no," Bud said to himself, "I guess it was not for any crimes she ever did." The day had grown darker and colder, biting wind began to whirl hard little around the porch. Mrs. Cavers sang on: