Then she had said good-bye to him, and bade him be always a good boy, and had leaned over and kissed him.

It was the kiss of a mother spiritualized by the innocent mystery and imagination of virginity.
Jerome kept the little book always, and he never forgot the kiss nor the teacher, who returned to her native village and taught the school there during the summer months, and starved on the proceeds during the winter, until she died, some ten years later, being of a delicate habit, and finding no place of comfort in the world.
Jerome walked ten miles and back to her funeral one freezing day..