ou--you suppose they charge admission--up there?" His eyes were
lifted. "Do you suppose you've got to--to show your good deeds to git
in?" The answering whisper was almost as faint as the old man's.

"No," panted Eskew, "nobody knows. But I hope--I do hope--they'll have
some free seats. It's a--mighty poor show--we'll--all have--if
they--don't!"

He sighed peacefully, his head grew heavier on Joe's arm; and the young
man set his hand gently upon the unseeing eyes. Ariel did not rise
from where she knelt, but looked up at him when, a little later, he
lifted his hand.

"Yes," said Joe, "you can cry now."

XXII

MR. SHEEHAN SPEAKS

Joe helped to carry what was mortal of Eskew from Ariel's house to its
final abiding-place. With him, in that task, were Buckalew, Bradbury,
the Colonel, and the grandsons of the two latter, and Mrs. Louden drew
in her skirts grimly as her step-son passed her in the mournful
procession through the hall. Her eyes were red with weeping (not for
Eskew), but not so red as those of Mamie Pike, who stood beside her.

On the way to the cemetery, Joe and Ariel were together in a carriage
with Buckalew and the minister who had read the service, a dark,
pleasant-eyed young man;--and the Squire, after being almost overcome
during the ceremony, experienced a natural reaction, talking cheerfully
throughout the long drive. He recounted many anecdotes of Eskew,
chuckling over most of them, though filled with wonder by a coincidence
which he and Flitcroft had discovered; the Colonel had recently been
made the custodian of his old friend's will, and it had been opened the
day before the funeral. Eskew had left everything he possessed--with
the regret that it was so little--to Joe.

"But the queer thing about it," said the Squire, addressing himself to
Ariel, "was the date of it, the seventeenth of June. The Colonel and I
got to talkin' it over, out on his porch, last night, tryin' to
rec'lect what was goin' on about then, and we figgered it out that it
was the Monday after you come back, the very day he got so upset when
he saw you goin' up to Louden's law-office with your roses."

Joe looked quickly at Ariel. She did not meet his glance, but, turning
instead to Ladew, the clergyman, began, with a barely perceptible
blush, to talk of something he had said in a sermon two weeks ago. The
two fell into a thoughtful and amiable discussion, during which there
stole into Joe's heart a strang