is he sick?"

"You'd better go and see. Old Eskew's waiting in the hall. He'll tell
you."

She was by him and through the window instantly. Mr. Arp was waiting in
the hall, talking in a low voice to Mrs. Pike.

"Your grandfather's all right," he told the frightened girl quickly. "He
sent me for you. Just hurry and get your things."

She was with him again in a moment, and seizing the old man's arm,
hurried him down the steps and toward the street almost at a run.

"You're not telling me the truth," she said. "You're not telling me the
truth!"

"Nothing has happened to Roger Tabor," panted Mr. Arp. "We're going this
way, not that." They had come to the gate, and as she turned to the
right he pulled her sharply to the left.

"Where are we going?" she demanded.

"To your Uncle Jonas's."

"Why?" she cried, in supreme astonishment. "What do you want to take me
there for? Don't you know that he doesn't like me--that he has stopped
speaking to me?"

"Yes," said the old man, grimly; "he has stopped speaking to everybody."

These startling words told Ariel that her uncle was dead. They did not
tell her what she was soon to learn--that he had died rich, and that,
failing other heirs, she and her grandfather had inherited his fortune.

II

It was Sunday in Canaan--Sunday some years later. Joe Louden was sitting
in the shade of Main Street bridge, smoking a cigar. He was alone; he
was always alone, for he had been away a long time, and had made few
friends since his return.

A breeze wandered up the river and touched the leaves and grass to life.
The young corn, deep green in the bottom-land, moved with a [v]staccato
flurry; the stirring air brought a smell of blossoms; the distance took
on faint lavender hazes which blended the outlines of the fields, lying
like square coverlets on the long slope of rising ground beyond the
bottom-land, and empurpled the blue woodland shadows of the groves.

For the first time it struck Joe that it was a beautiful day. He opened
his eyes and looked about him whimsically. Then he shook his head again.
A lady had just emerged from the bridge and was coming toward him.

It would be hard to get at Joe's first impressions of her. We can find
conveyance for only the broadest and heaviest. At first sight of her,
there was preeminently the shock of seeing anything so exquisite in his
accustomed world. For she was exquisite; she was that, and much more,
from the ivory [v]ferrule of th