"
By this time they had arrived at the boarding-house; and the old
gentleman, having seen Abbie safely in to the door, drove homeward,
frowning all the way, and at intervals shaking his head slowly. When he
got home, he shut himself into his study, and there paced restlessly
backward and forward, and stared out of the window across the valley.
That open spot on the hill-top seemed to afford little or no
enlightenment or satisfaction; and when he sat down to his solitary
dinner, the frown had not yet cleared away.
The next day the rain was over, and a cart was sent up to the parsonage,
containing Bressant's books, and such other of his belongings as he
would be likely to need during his illness; and, accompanying them, a
note from Abbie, expressing her regret at his misfortune, and her hopes
that he would return to his rooms at her house as soon as his health was
sufficiently reestablished. The young man heard the note read, and
congratulated himself, as he closed his eyes with a yawn, that he was
not under his quondam landlady's ministrations.
But even the best circumstances could do little to lighten the
insufferable tediousness of his confinement. Probably, however, such
changes and modifications as may have been in progress in his nature,
attained quicker and easier development by reason of his physical
prostration.
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