He resolved upon this step before he went to bed, and on the next morning he began to pack up. Miss Hadley, from the other side, watched his open windows with a curiosity much quickened by her sister’s surmises and doubts, and saw, to her amazement, the great canvas moved from its position in the corner,--a step which she found it difficult to understand. ‘I suppose he is going to take to his painting again,’ she said to Jane, when she came home. Jane shook her head, with dubious looks. The truth was she did not understand it. The most strange of all possible orders had proceeded that morning from Mrs. Severn’s studio. It was that she was extremely busy, and that no one was to be admitted. No one! Miss Jane Hadley had her doubts that, though this was the audible command, an exception had been made in Laurie’s favour, and that so unusual a step was taken by the padrona in order to secure to herself, without interruption, the society of her lover. Though Miss Hadley loved her friend truly in her way, and had a respect for her, and even believed in her, this was the evil thought which had crossed her mind; and consequently she was disposed to scoff at her sister’s suggestions. But there were soon other facts to report of a still more bewildering character. A van came to Laurie’s door, and carried off the big canvas; and a workman in a paper cap became visible to the elder sister’s curious eyes in the centre of Laurie’s room, packing in a vast packing-case the young man’s belongings. ‘He is going away!’ Miss Hadley said, with dismay, when her sister came home. She could have cried as she said it. He was as good as a play to the invalid who never stirred out of her parlour. Laurie, with his kindly ways, had made himself a place in her heart. He had taken off his hat as he came out every day to the shadow of her cap between the curtains; he had waved his hand to her from his balcony; he had never found fault with her investigations; and when he bought the flowers for his window he had sent her some pots of the earliest spring blossoms to cheer her. She, too, had grown fond of Laurie. ‘He is going away!’ she said, with the corners of her mouth drooping. ‘And the very best thing he could do,’ said Miss Jane decidedly; upon which, though she was a very model of decorum, old Miss Hadley felt for the minute as if she would have liked to fling her tea-cup at her sister’s head.