d along every important road in the civilized world.

Indeed he was so engaged in these enterprises that he didn't marry until
he was well past forty-five. Then one spring, going to Charlestown to buy
his season's supply of pine, he came back with a bride from one of the
oldest, one of the most famous families in all America.

There were three children to this marriage--one son and two daughters.

I will tell you about the daughters in my first chapter--two delightful
old maids who later had a baby between them--but first I must tell you
about the seventh and last Josiah.

In his youth he was wild.

This may have been partly due to that irreducible minimum of Original Sin
which (they say) is in all of us--and partly due to his cousin Stanley.

Now I don't mean to say for a moment that Stanley Woodward was a natural
born villain. I don't think people are born that way at all. At first the
idea probably struck him as a sort of a joke. "If anything happens to
young Josiah," I can imagine him thinking to himself with a grin, "I may
own this place myself some day.... Who knows?"

And from that day forward, he unconsciously borrowed from the spiders--if
you can imagine a smiling spider--and began to spin.

Did young Josiah want to leave the office early? Stanley smilingly did
his work for him.

Was young Josiah late the next morning? Stanley smilingly hid his
absence.

Did young Josiah yearn for life and adventure? Stanley spun a few more
webs and they met that night in Brigg's livery stable.

It didn't take much of this--unexpectedly little in fact--the last of the
Spencers resembling one of those giant firecrackers of bygone days--the
bigger the cracker, the shorter the fuse. Some say he married an actress,
which was one of the things which were generally whispered when I was a
boy. A Russian they said she was--which never failed to bring another
gasp. Others say she was a beautiful bare-back rider in a circus and wore
tights--which was another of the things which used to be whispered when I
was a boy, and not even then unless the children had first been sent from
the room and only bosom friends were present.

Whatever she was, young Josiah disappeared with her, and no one saw him
again until his mother died in the mansion on the hill. Some say she died
of a broken heart, but I never believed in that, for if sorrow could
break the human heart I doubt if many of us would be alive to smile at
next year's joys. Ho