The stage came. Our first supper was pleasant both as a reality and as a type of their future. Hal and Mary were truly married, and through the ensuing years their lives ran on together merged as one. When we stopped to think over the years since his boyhood, to remember the comparatively few advantages he had enjoyed, the ill luck of my father in his early years, and his tired, discouraged way which followed,--it was hard to realize the facts as they were. Grandma Northrop often prophesied of Hal, saying to mother: "That boy's star will rise. I know his good luck will more than balance his father's misfortune, and in your old age you will see him handsomely settled in life." It seemed as if the impulse of his youth had all tended to bring him where the light could shine on his art, and from the time he entered Mr. Hanson's employ his good fortune was before him. There is another thought runs by the side of this, and that is one induced by the knowledge of the great power of gold. Mr. Hanson was a man of wealth and good business relations. Liking Hal for himself, and interested in his art, it was easy for him to open many doors for the entrance of his work. Mr. Benton was a help to Hal in his art, and his reward was immediate almost, for Hal had told me Will's pieces had never been appreciated as now. It was astonishing, too, how many people had money to buy these expensive treasures,--but the sea was smooth. "Every shingle on the house paid for," said Aunt Hildy; "aint that the beginning that ought to end well?" And now the road of the future lay, as a fair meadowland, whose flowers and grasses should be gathered through the years. Truly life is strangely mixed. The look of perplexing anxiety had vanished from my father's face, for with Hal's prospects his own had grown bright, and you cannot know how Clara lifted him along, as it were; paying well and promptly and saving in so many ways, was a wondrous help to a farmer's family. There was also the prospect of a new street being opened through the centre of the town, and if my father wished he could sell building lots on one side of it, for it would run along the edge of his land. "Trouble don't never come single-handed, neither does prosperity, Mr. Minot," said Aunt Hildy. "Love's Fawn" was a famous little housekeeper, everything was in good order, and I certainly found a well-spring of joy in the society of these two. If Mary needed any extra help, Hal said, "Emily will do it." This was a very welcome change from the old saying.