How long this absence from home might be, he did not know.

But it was the snapping of the tie, -- that he knew.

He was setting his face to the world; and the world's face did not answer him very cheerfully.

And that poor little pocket-handkerchief of things, which his mother's hands had tied up, he hardly dared glance at it; it said so pitifully how much they would, how little they had the power to do for him; she and his father; how little way that heart of love could reach, when once he had set out on the cold journey of life.

He had set out now, and he felt alone, -- alone; -- his best company was the remembrance of that whispered blessing; and that, he knew, would abide with him.
If the heart could have coined the treasure it sent back, his mother would have been poor no more.
He did not sit down, nor stop, nor shed a tear.