The dedication day for Goodloe Chapel arrived upon Goodloets just one month from the day upon which the beast of storm had ravaged it, and as that fateful morning dawned with an extraordinary grandeur, so that Sunday in mid-October came up from behind Paradise Ridge with unusual beauty, only with the difference of calmness instead of splendor and peace instead of tumult. The sun was warm and benignant, with not a cloud in the deep blue sky to obscure its blessing. A gentle breeze blew in from the fields and meadows laden with rich harvest odors and every shrub and flower and vine which had been hiding back a few late buds let them burst forth in honor of the day, and in many instances they bloomed from a new growth thrown over the scars in the sides of the old town. In one short month most of the ruins had been reduced to orderly piles of material to be used in rebuilding, and a great many of the deepest gashes had been healed completely and covered with merciful vine and blossom. And it had also been like that with most of the scars in the lives of the bereaved; they ached, but they had been covered with a courage to go on building again until the new structure could be complete. I think something of this feeling was in the minds of most of the people as they began to assemble around Goodloe Chapel long before the time for its opening. And as had happened once before, the procession from the Town met the procession from the Settlement, only this time they were not divided so completely from the right to the left. A tall mill woman, whose husband had gone down in the crash at the saddlery, came and took Nell's hand in hers and laid a strong arm around her shoulders, while Harriet went over and took from the arms of the young father the little motherless mite who had been rescued from the pillow floating on the river. Billy shook hands with a young tanner in tight but wholly new clothes, to whom Luella May Spain introduced him as her imminent husband. In times of stress women are apt to seize and cling to the arm of masculine protection, and Luella May had chosen to forget the fascination of Billy's hesitation and two-steps and secure for herself a life of thorough normality. She would probably never forget those dances with Billy, and they would lend a kind of reminiscent glow of pleasure over her boiling cabbage pots, but it would be no worse than that. Mr. Todd was shaven and habitated in the neat black coat he had thrown off as he went at the ruin of the schoolhouse a month before, and with a tender smile on his lean old face he came over and stood beside Martha, as if to be watchful of her in the new order of her life.