The Departure

"John, how would you like to take a trip to New York--the city, I
mean?" said Mr. Livingstone, to his son, one morning about two weeks
following the events narrated in the last chapter.

"Well enough--why do you ask?" answered John.

"Because," said his father, "I have to-day received a letter which
makes it necessary for one of us to be there the 15th, and as you are
fond of traveling, I had rather you would go. You had better start
immediately--say to-morrow."

John Jr. started from his chair. To-morrow she left her home--the 15th
she sailed. He might see her again, though at a distance, for she
should never know he followed her! Since that night in Frankfort he
had not looked upon her face, but he had kept his promise, returning to
her everything--everything except a withered rose-bud, which years
before, when but a boy, he had twined among the heavy braids of her
hair, and which she had given back to him, playfully fastening it in
the button-hole of his roundabout! How well he remembered that day.
She was a little romping girl, teasing him unmercifully about his _flat
feet_ and _big hands_, chiding him for his _negro slang_, as she termed
his favorite expressions, and with whatever else she did, weaving her
image into his heart's best and noblest affections, until he seemed to
live only for her, But now 'twas changed--terribly changed. She was no
longer "his Nellie," the Nellie of his boyhood's love; and with a
muttered curse and a tear, large, round, and hot, such as only John Jr.
could shed, he sent her back every memento of the past, all save that
rose-bud, with which he could not part, it seemed so like his early
hopes--withered and dead.