“I might have known that I could not hate him forever, might have realised, when in a fit of jealous rage I sought to destroy his garden that it was of no use. A garden such as his, that is planted in the hearts of his fellow men, can never perish. As I have sat at my cobbler’s bench through all these years, toiling for my living in an alien land, I have fought against the thought of Master Simon and of all the good he did to me and to others, but I have fought in vain. The memory grew and grew within my heart, choking out my evil and bitter thoughts, just as his clumps of blossoming plants used to grow until there was no room left for weeds. So I have come back to do what justice I can at last ere I die, and to struggle through the snow to look at his gravestone where he sleeps up yonder on the hillside. I would that I had earned, like him, such peaceful, true repose.” The tears rained down Clotilde’s cheeks as she refolded the letter. So that was why Samuel Skerry, old and broken as he was, had travelled all the way from Holland to New England, spurred by his longing to make amends for the wrong that he had done. The minister emptied the contents of the bag upon the table. “It is not a very great sum,” he said, “but the little shoemaker’s penitence should make it equal to all the riches in the world.” “It will buy back the land that, in the necessity of war, had to be sold,” answered Clotilde, “the land that Master Sheffield valued at just that sum—all the riches in the world.” Thus it came about that the strip of meadow land running down to the sea became once more a part of the garden, and its blossoming hedge that had escaped the fire, bloomed, that Spring, for Clotilde and for Hopewell and not for tight-pocketed Ephraim Paddock. By this time every flower bed and border was filled again, the May sunshine had brought out the apple blossoms and the linden leaves, had quickened the growing hedges and made green the grass of the Queen’s garden. “Another year,” reflected Clotilde, rising from her task of setting out the last plant, “and the place will be all itself again.” She was working near the hedge that separated that part of the garden from the lane, and as she stood there, surveying her handiwork, she heard two men talking together as they passed on the other side of the bushes. “They say there is a ship from England come to anchor in Salem harbour,” said one. “John Ashby rode up to see her, as she is partly his, the Star of Hope. She was caught in an English port when war began and has been held back by the winter storms ever since the peace was declared. She is the first vessel to come to these parts from England since the war ended.” “Ay,” said the other. “John Ashby must be a glad man. It is a happy sign for all of us when ships ply the seas again between the Old Country and the New. I wonder what she carries!”