Tom preferred to walk, and followed the carriage to the house, where the more intimate friends of the family were waiting to receive them. That was a very happy summer for all the parties concerned. The Ralston House was filled with guests. The Smuggler’s room was thrown open to the air and the light of heaven. From the look-out on the roof a flag was always floating as a welcome to the coming guests and a farewell to the parting. Paul was more popular than ever and an object of so much attention from his friends and curiosity to the strangers in the place that he was glad when the season was over, and they returned to their home in Boston, where they were to pass the winter. The story of the tragedy is still told in Oak City, the place pointed out where Jack was shot and Tom pointed out as the man who shot him. The window from which Paul escaped and the cell where he was confined is visited by the curious ones, fond of the marvelous. Miss Hansford pursues the even tenor of her way, scolding and petting and spoiling the boys, glad that she has nothing to fear from Clarice and watching vigilantly every marriageable woman who is polite to Roger. If not reconciled to his candles and cassocks and cottas and intoning, she holds her peace, satisfied that he is a good man. Her bones still do their duty, and she has had a chance to wear her gray silk gown to a reception at the Ralston House, where she helped receive the guests and was reported in the papers. Paul and Elithe are very happy, although the memory of the terrible days which he passed in prison and in hiding sometimes casts a shadow over Paul and makes him very sad. But when he looks at Elithe he says: “Only for that she would not have been my wife, and so I thank God for it!” THE END. POPULAR NOVELS BY MRS. MARY J. HOLMES.