The Happy End

gone three weeks before with Phebe. This done he sat for a long while on the portico of his house, facing the rich bottom pasturage and high verdant range beyond. It was late afternoon and the rift

ippoorwills. The valley, just as Hannah had said, was lonely. He stirred a

ady blue eyes. Older than Calvin, she had settled into a complete acquiescence with whatever life brought; no more for her than the keeping of her brother's house. Calvin, noting the efficient m

oughts, and with a measure of success. But it never occurred to him to consider any other girl; that p

ng beyond the road were his; in two years more Senator Alderwith died, and there was a division of his estate, in which Calvin assumed large liabilit

with exceptional rapidity; his face grew leaner and his bea

ah. Yet he learned in the various channels of communication common to remote localities that Richmond Braley was doing badly. Hosmer went to bank in one of the newly prosperous towns

w valley of the Braleys' home. The place had been neglected until it was hardly distinguishable from the sur

and to Calvin's surprise a child with a quantity of straight pale-brown ha

ked, his gaze straying i

s Hosmer has a spark of good feeling. I sent him a postal card to come a long while back,

ammark asked when

. "What will become of her's beyond me. She

n of Calvin's heart. Hannah's

got no father you could fix. Her mother wrote the name was Lucy Vibard, and she'd c

he came to a bad end-Lord reckons where Phebe is. I always thought you were weak fingered to let Hanna

debasement-as young and graceful and disturbing. Without further speech he left the kitchen and crossed the house to the shut parlor. It was screened against the day, dim and

t had illuminated her right cheek. Here she had proclaimed her impatience with Greenstream, with its loneliness, her hu

mentally he composed the urgent message to be sent to Hosmer. But that failed to settle the problem of Lucy's safety-Hannah's Lucy, who might have been his

s funeral, an erratic wind blowing her so