Six months had passed since Charlie De Vere died. Paul Haverill, Will Mather, and Captain Carleton had been together on a pilgrimage to Paul’s old neighborhood, where the people, wiser grown, welcomed back their old friend and neighbor, and strove in various ways to atone for all which had been cruel and harsh in their former dealing toward him. The war had left them destitute, so far as negroes and money were concerned; but such as they had they freely offered Paul, entreating him to stay in their midst and rebuild the homestead, whose blackened ruins bore testimony to what men’s passions will lead them to do when roused and uncontrolled. But Paul said no; he could never again live where there was so much to remind him of the past. A little way out of Nashville was a beautiful dwelling-house, which, with a few acres of highly cultivated land, was offered for sale. Maude had spoken of the place when she was in the city, and had said: “I should like to live there.” And Tom had remembered it; and when he found it for sale, he suggested to Mr. Haverill that they buy it as a winter residence for Maude. And so what little property Paul Haverill had left was invested in _Fair Oaks_, as the place was called; and Tom gave orders that the house should be refurnished and ready for himself and bride as early as the first of November. As far as was possible, Will and Tom found and generously rewarded those who had so kindly befriended them in their perilous journey across the mountains. But some were missing, and only their graves remained to tell the story of their wrongs. This trip was made in June, and early in August, the whole Carleton family went to New London, where Jimmie improved so fast that few would have recognized the pale, thin invalid, of Andersonville notoriety, in the active, red-cheeked, saucy-eyed young man, who became the life of the Pequot House, and for whom the gay belles practiced their most bewitching coquetries. But these were all lost on Jimmie, who was seldom many minutes away from the fair, blue-eyed woman who, the girls had learned, was a widow, and of whom they at first had no fears. But they changed their minds when day after day saw the “handsome Carleton” at her side, and night after night found him walking with her along the road, or sitting on the rocks and watching the tide come in, just as he had done years ago, when both were younger than they were now. They lived those days over again, and, in their perfect happiness, almost forgot the sorrow and pain which had come to them both since they first looked out upon the waters of New London bay. Tom and Maude were there, too, together with Rose Mather and Will, and Susan Simms and John.