"'_You wouldn't let me 'lope with yo' dorter, so I've 'loped with yo' filly, an' you'll never see hair nor hide of her till you send me word to come back to this house an' fetch a preacher._' "'(Signed) _Hillard Watts._'" The old man smiled, and Bud slapped his leg gleefully. "Great--great! Oh my, but who'd a thought of it?" he grunted. "They say it 'ud done you good to have been there the nex' mornin' an' heurd the cussin' recurd busted--but me an' the filly was forty miles away. He got out a warrant for me for hoss-stealin', but the sheriff was for me, an' though he hunted high an' low he never could find me." "Well, it went on for a month, an' I got the old man's note, sent by the sheriff: "_'To Hillard Watts, Wher-Ever Found._ "_'Come on home an' fetch yo' preacher. Can't afford to loose the filly, an' the gal has been off her feed ever since you left._ "'_Jobe Galloway._' "Oh, Bud, I'll never forgit that home-comin' when she met me at the gate an' kissed me an' laughed a little an' cried a heap, an' we walked in the little parlor an' the preacher made us one. "Nor of that happy, happy year, when all life seemed a sweet dream now as I look back, an' even the memory of it keeps me happy. Memory is a land that never changes in a world of changes, an' that should show us our soul is immortal, for memory is only the reflection of our soul." His voice grew more tender, and low: "Toward the last of the year I seed her makin' little things slyly an' hidin' 'em away in the bureau drawer, an' one night she put away a tiny half-finished little dress with the needle stickin' in the hem--just as she left it--just as her beautiful hands made the last stitch they ever made on earth.... "O Bud, Bud, out of this blow come the sweetest thought I ever had, an' I know from that day that this life ain't all, that we'll live agin as sho' as God lives an' is just--an' no man can doubt that. No--no--Bud, this life ain't all, because it's God's unvarying law to finish things. That tree there is finished, an' them birds, they are finished, an' that flower by the roadside an' the mountain yonder an' the world an' the stars an' the sun. An' we're mo' than they be, Bud--even the tinies' soul, like Kathleen's little one that jes' opened its eyes an' smiled an' died, when its mammy died. It had something that the trees an' birds an' mountains didn't have--a soul--an' don't you kno' He'll finish all such lives up yonder? He'll pay it back a thousandfold for what he cuts off here." Bud wept because the tears were running down the old man's cheeks. He wanted to say something, but he could not speak. That queer feeling that came over him at times and made him silent had come again. CHAPTER III AN ANSWER TO PRAYER Then the old man remembered that he was making Bud suffer with his own sorrow, and when Bud looked at him again the Bishop had wiped his eyes on the back of his hand and was smiling.