Justin Ware arrived in town the day Persis finished Mildred's wedding dress. She heard the news from Joel, who had been at the station when the train came in. This was not a happy accident, nor was it intended as a spontaneous welcome to the returning son of Clematis. Year in and year out, except when the state of his health prevented, Joel kept a standing engagement with the four-twenty train, and few left town or entered it without his knowledge. "He's filled out considerable, Justin Ware has, but except for that he hasn't changed much. Got a seal ring and silk lining to his overcoat. He ain't what you call a flashy dresser, but he lays it all over the young chaps like Thad West who think they're so swell." Persis listened without comment. She had worked unusually hard that week, and the tired lines of her face acknowledged as much. She set them at defiance in a peculiarly feminine fashion by dressing that evening in the unbecoming henrietta and doing her hair in the plainest, most severe fashion. At half past seven Thomas Hardin came. "That Ware feller is going to put up at the Clematis House. He's a big bug all right. Wanted a private setting-room, he did," Thomas chuckled. "Guess he's the sort that can't remember back further than he feels like doing. Old man Ware's private setting-room was a keg o' nails in Sol Peter's store. Nobody else ever thought of taking that particular keg. Stood right back of the stove, I remember. You never caught old man Ware putting on any airs." "Justin and me was always the best of friends," said Joel, puffing out his thin chest pompously, as if he felt himself vicariously honored by Mr. Ware's tendency to exclusiveness. "We took a shine to each other when we were little shavers. As Addison says: "'Great souls by instinct to each other turn Demand alliance, and in friendship burn!' "Yes, sir, it was a real David and Jonathan affair. That's his picture upon the mantel now." Thomas Hardin turned his head. "'Tis so," he assented. "Hasn't changed such an all-fired lot only now he looks as if he'd cut his wisdom teeth quite a spell back." His gaze wandered to Persis, silently basting the breadths of a gray crepe skirt. "You must have been acquainted with him, too," he said politely, striving to include her in the conversation. "Yes, I knew him." Persis did not lift her eyes. "All the family knew Justin," Joel explained. "Him and me being such friends, he was in and out of the house same as if he belonged here. I didn't speak to him to-day, because I never was one to cheapen myself by doing my visiting on a depot platform. We'll have plenty of chances to talk over old times. "'There is nothing can equal the tender hours When life is first in bloom.'"