was very busy with post-mortem details and
Eugene Wellington's services were in constant demand by her, while Jerry
Swaim wandered aimlessly about the house with a sense of the uselessness
of her existence forcing itself upon her for the first time. Late in the
afternoon, when the big rooms with all their luxurious appointments
seemed unbearable, she slipped down the sodden way to the rose-arbor.
There was a shower of new buds showing now under the beneficence of the
warm rain, and all the withered petals of fallen blossoms were swept
from sight.

As Jerry dropped into an easy willow rocker her eye fell on the
splintered angle of the trellis by the doorway where Uncle Cornie had
sat when the last summons came to him. A folded paper lay under the
seat, inside the door, as if it had been blown from his pocket by a
whirl of wind in that midnight thunder-storm.

Jerry stared at the paper a long time before it occurred to her to pick
it up. At last, in a mechanical way, she took it from under the seat and
spread it out on the broad arm of her chair. As she read its contents
her listlessness fell away, the dreamy blue eyes glowed with a new
light, the firm mouth took on a bit more of firmness, and the strong
little hands holding the paper did not tremble.

"A claim in the Sage Brush Valley in Kansas." Jerry spoke slowly. "It
lies in Range--Township--Oh, that's all Greek to me! They must number
land out there like lots in the potter's-field corner of the cemetery
that we drove by yesterday. Maybe they may all be dead ones, paupers at
that, in Kansas. It is controlled, or something, by York Macpherson of
the Macpherson Mortgage Company of New Eden--_New Eden_--Kansas. Uncle
Cornie told me it hadn't brought any income, but that wasn't York
Macpherson's fault. Strange that I remember all that Uncle Cornie said
here the other night."

The girl read the document spread out before her a second time. When she
lifted her face again it was another Jerry Swaim who looked out through
the dark-blue eyes. The rain had ceased falling. A cool breeze was
playing up the Winnowoc Valley, and low in the west shafts of sunlight
were piercing the thinning gray clouds.

"Twelve hundred acres! A prince's holdings! Why 'Eden' has only two
hundred! And that is at _New_ Eden. It 'hasn't been well managed.' I
know who's going to manage it now. I'm the daughter of Jim Swaim. He was
a good business man. And Aunt Darby--" A smile broke the set line ab