Had not the same relentless Providence driven him to that also?
His weary spirit took for the first time a poise of utter self-righteousness in opposition to this Providence, and he blasphemed in his inner closet of self, before the face of the Lord, as he comprehended it.
"Well, I have a sort of set my heart on it," said Fanny.
"She shall have the watch," repeated Andrew, and his voice was fairly defiant.
After Fanny had gone into the house and lighted her lamp, and resumed work on her wrapper, Andrew still sat on the step in the cool evening.

There was a full moon, and great masses of shadows seemed to float and hover and alight on the earth with a gigantic brooding as of birds.

The trees seemed redoubled in size from the soft indetermination of the moonlight which confused shadow and light, and deceived the eye as with soft loomings out of false distances.

There was a tall pine, grown from a sapling since Ellen's childhood, and that looked more like a column of mist than a tree, but the Norway spruces clove the air sharply like silhouettes in ink, and outlined their dark profiles clearly against the silver radiance.
To Andrew, looking at it all, came the feeling of a traveller who passes all scenes whether of joy or woe, being himself in his passing the one thing which remains, and somehow he got from it an enormous comfort.
"We're all travellin' along," he said aloud, in a strained, solemn voice.
"What did you say, Andrew ?" Fanny called from the open window.
"Nothin'," replied Andrew..