u yourself seem all
them things you say. Trouble you've had, an' sorrow; the sickness an'
Wahneeny; an' growin' up, an' love affairs; an' motherhood, an' all;
yet there you be, the youngest, the prettiest, the hopefullest, the
courageousest creature the Lord ever made. What is it, child; what is
it makes you so different from other folks?"

"Am I different, dear? Well, Mother Mercy, yonder, is looking
mystified and troubled. She doesn't half like my prophetic moods, I
know. I merely came, for Gaspar, to inquire about the miller. But I
like your own idea of the new tavern, and you should begin it right
away. Gaspar will lend you the money if you need it; and if you have
time for more sheets than these, Mercy dear, I'll send you over some
pieces of finer muslin and you might begin on a lot for our hospital."

"Your hospital? 'Tain't even begun nor planned."

"Oh, yes, it is planned. From my own experience and from books I can
guess what we will need. But there are doctors and nurses coming after
a time--There, there, dear. I will stop. I won't look ahead another
step while I'm here. But--it's coming--all of it!" she finished gayly,
as she turned from the doorway and passed down the forlorn little
street.

Was it "in the air," as the Sun Maid protested, that indomitable
courage and faith to do and dare, to plan, to begin, and to achieve?
Certain it is that in five years from that morning when Kitty Keith
had lingered in Mercy's doorway foretelling the future some, at least,
of her prophecies had materialized. Where then had been but two
hundred citizens were now more than twenty times that number. The
"crowding" had begun; and there followed years upon years of wonderful
growth; wherein Gaspar's cool head and shrewd business tact and
ever-deepening purse were always to the fore, at the demand of all who
needed either. In an unswerving singleness of purpose, he devoted his
energy and his ambition toward making his beloved home, as far as in
him lay, the leading home and mart of all the civilized world.

And the Sun Maid walked steadfastly by his side, adding to his efforts
and ambitions the sympathy of her great heart and cultured,
ever-broadening womanhood.

Thus passed almost a quarter-century of years so full and peaceful
that nothing can be written of them save the one word--happy. Yet at
the end of this long time, wherein Abel and Mercy had quietly fallen
on sleep and "Kit's little tackers" had grown up to be th