Presently he took them down and turned up the corner of the tablecloth.
"I will write a few lines," he said; "till you are ready to sit down and talk." Em, as she shook out the tablecloth, watched him bending intently over his paper.

He had changed much.

His face had grown thinner; his cheeks were almost hollow, though they were covered by a dark growth of beard.
She sat down on the skin beside him, and felt the little bundle on the bench; it was painfully small and soft.

Perhaps it held a shirt and a book, but nothing more.

The old black hat had a piece of unhemmed muslin twisted round it, and on his elbow was a large patch so fixed on with yellow thread that her heart ached.