-happy?' The steady look seemed to kinder freeze. I
called it a listening look more than an understanding one. I'll allas
hold to that, but God knows there warn't much time to calculate.
Peneluna began acting up but Mary-Clare set her aside.

"'All right, Daddy darling!' she whispered, and with that she stood up
and said to me, 'You marry us at once! Come close so that he can see
and know!'

"Things go here in the Forest that don't go elsewhere; I married
them two because I couldn't help it--something drew me on. And
then just when I got to the end, ole Doc rose up like he was
lifted--he stared at what was passing; tried to say something, and
sank back smiling--dead!"

Northrup wiped his forehead. There were drops of perspiration on it,
and his breath came roughly through his throat; he seemed part of the
dramatic scene.

"Satisfied, _I_ say!" broke in Aunt Polly. "It _was_ a big risk, but
the dying see far, and the doctor had left all he had to Mary-Clare,
which didn't seem just right to his flesh-and-blood boy, and I guess
he wanted to mend a bad matter the only way he could."

"Maybe!" sighed Peter. "Maybe. But he took big chances even for a
dying man. I couldn't get rid of the notion that when he cottoned to
what had been done, he sorter threw up his hands! But what happened to
Mary-Clare just took my breath. 'Pon my soul, as I looked at her it
was like I saw her going away after ole Doc and leaving, in her place,
a new, different woman that really didn't count so long as she looked
after things while the real Mary-Clare went about her business. It was
disturbing and I felt downright giddy."

"You're downright silly, Peter Heathcote"--Polly tossed her knitting
aside and shifted the pillows of the couch--"making Mary-Clare out the
way you do when she's ordinary enough and doing her life tasks same as
other folks."

"How has it worked out?" Northrup heard the words as if another spoke
them.

"I guess, friend, that's what no one actually knows." Peter pulled on
his pipe. "Larry is on and off. Maclin, over to the mines, seems to do
the ordering of Larry's coming and going. Darned funny business, I
say. However, there you are. When Larry is home I guess the way
Mary-Clare holds her head and laughs gets on his nerves. No man likes
to feel that he can't clutch hold of his wife, but it comes to that,
say what you will, Mary-Clare keeps free of things in a mighty odd
fashion; I mean the real part of her; the other