He was not easily reconciled to the new order of things, but for his daughter's sake he held his peace. Then, too, though he never forgave John Britton for having married his daughter, yet John Britton as a man whose wealth exceeded even his own was an altogether different person from the ambitious but impecunious lover of thirty years before. He had never forgiven Darrell for being John Britton's son, but mingled with his long-cherished animosity was a secret pride in the splendid physical and intellectual manhood of this sole representative of his own line. Between the sisters there had been few points of resemblance. Patience Jewett had been of an ardent, emotional nature, passionately fond of music, a great reader, and with little taste for the household tasks in which her more practical sister delighted. Having a more delicate constitution, she had little share in the busy routine of farm life, but was allowed to follow her own inclinations. She was still absorbed in her music and studies when Love found her, and the woman within her awoke at his call. After Darrell's birth her health was seriously impaired. It seemed as though her faith in her husband, her belief that he would one day return, and her love for her son were the only ties holding soul and body together, and, with her natural religious tendencies, the spiritual nature developed at the expense of the physical. Since Darrell's strange disappearance she had failed rapidly. With the return of her husband and son she seemed temporarily to renew her hold on life, appearing stronger than for many months. For the first few days much of her time was spent at her piano, singing with her husband the old songs of their early love, but oftenest a favorite of his which she had sung during the years of his absence, and which Darrell had sung on that night at The Pines following his discovery of the violin,--"Loyal to Love and Thee." Her delight in the rooms newly fitted up for her was unbounded, and against the background of their subdued, warm tints she made a strikingly beautiful picture, with her sweet, spirituelle face crowned with waving silver hair. Either Darrell or his father, or both, were constantly with her, for they realized that the time was short in which to make amends for the missing years. She loved to listen to her husband's tales of the great West or to bits which Darrell read from his journal of that strange chapter of his own life. "You have not yet asked after your sweetheart, Darrell," his mother said one evening soon after his arrival, as they sat awaiting his father's return from a short stroll. "You are my sweetheart now, little mother," he replied, kissing the hand that lay within his own. "Does that mean that you care less for Marion than before you went away?" she queried.