It seemed more than a mere physical parting.

It was his childhood that was parting from her for ever.

When he came to see them he would be something different,--a man, an independent being.

As long ago physically, now spiritually, the umbilical cord had been cut.
With Esther and Dot and Mat the parting was hardly a parting, as it was rather a promise of their all meeting together some day in a new place of freedom, which there was a sense of his going out to prepare for them.

Their way would be his way, as the mother's could not; for theirs was the highway of youth, which, sooner or later, they would all take together, singing in the morning sun.
The three younger sisters, the as yet unopened buds of the family flower, took Henry's departure with the surface tears and the central indifference of childhood.