art; that's what you bettah do."

David, not unmindful of affairs on the far-away mountain side, made it
quite worth the while of the two cousins to stay on with the widow and
run the small farm under Cassandra's directions, and she found herself
fully occupied. She wrote David all the details: when and where things
were planted--how the vines he had set on the hill slope were
growing--how the pink rose he had brought from Hoke Belew's and planted
by their threshold had grown to the top of the door, and had three sweet
blossoms. She had shaken the petals of one between the pages of her
letter on May-day, and sent it to remind him, she said.

Nearly a month later than he had intended to sail, David left England,
overwhelmed with many small matters which seemed so great to his mother
and sister, and burdened with duties imposed upon him by the realization
that he had come into the possession of enormous wealth, more than he
could comprehendingly estimate; and that he was now setting out to
secure and prevent the loss of possibly double what he already
possessed.

People gathered about him and presented him with worthy and unworthy
opportunities for its disposal. They flocked to him in herds, with
importunities and flatteries. The tower which he had built up with his
ideals, and in which he had intrenched himself, was in danger of being
undermined and toppled into ruins, burying his soul beneath the debris.
When seated on the deck, the rose petals dropped into his hand as he
tore open Cassandra's letter. Some, ere he could catch them, were caught
up and blown away into the sea.

He held them and inhaled their sweetness, and everything seemed to find
its true value and proportion and to fall into its right place. Again on
the mountain top, with Cassandra at his side, he viewed in a perspective
of varying gradations his life, his aims, and his possessions.

The personality of his young wife, of late a vague thing to him, distant
and fair, and haloed about with sweet memories dimly discerned like a
dream that is past, presented itself to him all at once vivid and clear,
as if he held her in his arms with her head on his breast.

He heard again her voice with its quaint inflections and lingering
tones. Their love for each other loomed large, and became for him at
once the one truly vital thing in all his share of the universe. Had his
body been endowed with the wings of his soul, he would have left all and
gone to her;