He lifted her face as a young lover might, and
looked down into her eyes. "Is it yes?"

"Well, 'Liphalet it 'pears like you 're jest so pesterin' that I 've got
to say yes. Yes, then." And she returned the quiet but jubilant kiss
that he laid upon her lips.

"After all these years," he said. "Sorrow may last fur a night, but joy
cometh in the mornin'. It was a long night, but, thank the Lord, mornin'
's broke." Then, rising, he went to the door and called joyously,
"Freddie, come on in: it 's all over."

"'Liphalet, did that boy know what you was a-goin' to say?"

"Yes, o' course he did."

"Oh, my! oh, my! Well, I 've got a good mind to take it all back. Oh,
my!" And when Fred came in, for the first time in her life Miss Prime
was abashed and confused in his presence.

But Eliphalet had no thought of shame. He took her by the hand and said,
"Freddie, Miss Hester's consented at last: after thirty years, she 's
a-goin' to marry me."

But Miss Hester broke in, "'Liphalet, don't be a-puttin' notions in that
boy's head. You go 'way, Fred, right away."

Fred went out, but he felt bolder. He went past Elizabeth's house
whistling. He did n't care. He wondered if he would have to wait thirty
years for her. He hoped not.

CHAPTER IX

So great has been our absorption in the careers of Fred Brent, Miss
Prime, and Eliphalet Hodges that we have sadly neglected some of the
characters whose acquaintance we made at the beginning of our story. But
nature and Time have been kinder,--or more cruel, if you will. They have
neither passed over nor neglected them. They have combined with trouble
and hard work to kill one of Fred's earliest friends. Melissa Davis is
no more, and the oldest girl, Sophy, supplements her day's work of
saleswoman in a dry-goods store by getting supper in the evening and
making the younger Davises step around. Mrs. Warren, the sometime friend
of Margaret Brent and enemy of Miss Prime, has moved farther out, into
the suburbs, for Dexter has suburbs now, and boasts electric cars and
amusement parks. Time has done much for the town. Its streets are paved,
and the mean street that bore the tumble-down Brent cottage and its
fellows has been built up and grown respectable. It and the street where
Miss Prime's cottage frowned down have settled away into a quiet
residential portion of the town, while around to the east, south, and
west, and on both sides of the little river that divides the city, roars