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“I’m glad for you,” I said honestly. “When do you go?”

“When my mont’s out. But I hates ter go, Miss Lil.”

“What am I to do here?” I demanded, the sparrow in me refusing to be quenched altogether.

“I’ll do de bes’ I kin,” he said. “I been lookin’ roun’ fer you all winter. But dese town niggers is a onery set, fer sho’. When you-all comes home Milton’s comin’ back.”

“Never mind,” I said; “we’ll manage somehow.”

I closed my eyes because they were getting full of tears. He moved away, and I let the tears come. I wanted the country, too; and more and more as my illness grew, and it became increasingly difficult to take my part in the busy city life. The more one’s bodily freedom is restricted by weakness and pain, the more one longs for the unconfined spaces of earth and air, for wide horizons and sweeping winds, and wings that flash far up into the sunshine, above the shadows where one must lie, conning the hard lesson of patient idleness. And I wanted Uncle Milton—the visible link between me and that dear world of hill and sky for which I longed. Return to it seemed so bright a possibility while another heart, even this old Negro’s, held it as dear as I. If he went from me he would leave my hope bereft. I lay with closed eyes, absorbed in longing for that dear receding vision of delight.