Ollie watched the little warm white clouds against the blue of the October sky, and thought of the fleecy soft things which a mother loves to swaddle her baby in; she watched the shadow of falling leaves upon the floor, blowing past her window on the slant sunbeams. She was safe! Joe was accused, but she seemed to hold that a trivial incident in an exciting day. It would pass; he would clear himself, as he deserved to be cleared, and then, when Morgan came back for her and carried her away into his world, everything would be in tune. Perhaps it was because she knew that Joe was innocent that his accusation appeared so untenable and trivial to her. At any rate, the lawyers over at Shelbyville--wasn't their cunning known around the world--could get him off. If it came to that, she would see that he had a good one, as good as money could employ. Joe had stood by her; she would stand by Joe. That was the extent of her concern that afternoon. It was pleasant to stretch there in peace, with no task before her, no rude summons to arise and work. Isom would call her no more at dawn; his voice would be silent in that house forever more. There was no regret in the thought, no pang, no pain. As one lives his life, so he must be pitied in death. Soft deeds father soft memories. There never was but one man who rose with the recollection of pleasant dreams from pillowing his head upon a stone, and that man was under the hand of God. Isom Chase had planted bitterness; his memory was gall. She was safe, and she was free. She had come into her expectations; the pre-nuptial dreams of enjoying Isom Chase's wealth were suddenly at hand. Together with the old rifle and Isom's blood-stained garments, the coroner had taken away the little bag of gold, to be used as evidence, he said. He had taken the money, just as it was in the little sack, a smear of blood on it, after counting it before witnesses and giving her a receipt for the amount. Two thousand dollars; one hundred pieces of twenty dollars each. That was the tale of the contents of the canvas bag which had lain grinning on Isom's pulseless heart. It was not a great amount of money, considering Isom's faculty for gaining and holding it. It was the general belief that he had ten, twenty, times that amount, besides his loans, hidden away, and the secret of his hiding-place had gone out of the world with Isom. Others said that he had put his money into lands, pointing to the many farms which he owned and rented in the county. But be that as it might, there was Ollie, young and handsome, well paid for her hard year as Isom's wife, free now, and doubtless already willing at heart to make some young man happy. Nobody blamed her for that.