A Parting and a Meeting Author:William Dean Howells Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: n He was Eoger Burton, and he had taught the academy at Birchfield for the past year. He was twenty-seven, and Chloe Mason was twenty. Her father was the doct... more »or in Birchfield, and when Eoger came up from Boston way to take the school, he spent a few days in the doctor's house, until he could find a settled boarding place. Chloe had been the head of the household since her mother's death, and she sat at the head of the table, and poured out Roger's tea without looking towards him, so that it could hardly be called love at sight in her. But they both fell in love with each other at once, and they began keeping company almost from the first. Before the end of the first year it was known that they were engaged, but they were not really engaged till quite near the close of the spring term. Then she ran away from home for a little visit at her grandfather's in Medbury, to have a chance, she said, to think it over. As soon as the school closed he came after her; he told her that he came to help her think. She answered him, from the fright and joy his coining gave her, that this was a silly excuse, and she would hardly kiss him; but she let him stay till eleven o'clock, the night he arrived, before she drove him away to the tavern at the crossroads where he had put up. She said she guessed he would get locked out if he was not careful; and, in fact, the landlord came down to let him in with his night-clothes on, but chewing tobacco as if it were high noon. That wasFriday night, and this was Saturday morning. The horse and chaise were her grandfather's, and the squire told the young man that if he was not going anywhere in particular, and not in a hurry to get there, the horse was just the horse he wanted. chapter{Section 4in They started early, to be alone together as long ...« less