"I'll do all I can. But you may run home now,
Master Charlie, See! There's your father coming back for you,"
"I know I sha'n't see my mother again to-day," he answered; "good-by,
and remember, please."
She watched him running across the little meadow to his father; and then
she turned away, and walked slowly through the street homeward. Little
knots of the towns-people lingered still about the doorways, discussing
their rector's troubles. Though most of them greeted her, anxious to
hear her opinion as one who was considered on friendly terms with the
rector's family, she evaded their questionings, and passed on to the
solitude of her own dwelling. It had been solitary now for some days,
for her brother had disappeared early in the week; having stripped the
house of money, and set off on one of his vagrant tramps, of which she
knew nothing except that he always returned penniless, and generally
with the good clothes she provided for him exchanged for worthless rags.
How many years it was that her life had been embittered by his
drunkenness she could hardly reckon, so many had they been.
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