TWENTY-FIVE _Mr. Sanders's Riddle_

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX _Cephas Has His Troubles_

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN _Mr. Sanders Visits Some of His Old Friends_

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT _Nan and Margaret_

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE _Bridalbin Finds His Daughter_

CHAPTER THIRTY _Miss Polly Has Some News_

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE _Mr. Sanders Receives a Message_

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO _Malvern Has a Holiday_

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE _Gabriel as an Orator_

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR _Nan Surrenders_

GABRIEL TOLLIVER

_Prelude_

"Cephas! here is a letter for you, and it is from Shady Dale! I know you
will be happy now."

For several years Sophia had listened calmly to my glowing descriptions
of Shady Dale and the people there. She was patient, but I could see by
the way she sometimes raised her eyebrows that she was a trifle
suspicious of my judgment, and that she thought my opinions were unduly
coloured by my feelings. Once she went so far as to suggest that I was
all the time looking at the home people through the eyes of
boyhood--eyes that do not always see accurately. She had said, moreover,
that if I were to return to Shady Dale, I would find that the friends of
my boyhood were in no way different from the people I meet every day.
This was absurd, of course--or, rather, it would have been absurd for
any one else to make the suggestion; for at that particular time, Sophia
was a trifle jealous of Shady Dale and its people. Nevertheless, she was
really patient. You know how exasperating a man can be when he has a
hobby. Well, my hobby was Shady Dale, and I was not ashamed of it. The
man or woman who cannot display as much of the homing instinct as a cat
or a pigeon is a creature to be pitied or despised. Sophia herself was a
tramp, as she often said. She was born in a little suburban town in New
York State, but never lived there long enough to know what home was. She
went to Albany, then to Canada, and finally to Georgia; so that the only
real home she ever knew is the one she made herself--out of the raw
material, as one might say.

Well, she came running with the letter, for she is still active, though
a little past the prime of her youth. I returned the missive to her with
a faint show of dignity. "The letter is for you," I said. She looked at
the address more carefully, and agreed with me. "What in the world have
I done," she remarked, "to receive a letter from Shady Dale?"

"Why, it is the simplest thing in the world," I