"All those old Tallmadges are dead!" cried Emmie, jumping up and down behind her grandmother. "He's been back in America over two months, and he's coming here next week." Mrs. Gano was hurrying up-stairs to tell her son the great news. CHAPTER XIV Despite the distractions of a host of wandering fancies, Ethan Gano had been kept fairly closely at his studies till he had passed his twentieth birthday. To be sure, there had been a threatened interruption the spring before, when he seemed suddenly to lose interest in his work, and went about with vacant looks and airs of profound preoccupation. Old Mr. Tallmadge, observing him narrowly, decided that his grandson had got into debt, and that he was nervous about confessing. Ethan had never shown a proper regard for money. This was one of the many un-Tallmadge-like qualities developed by the years. It was a matter of paramount importance to counteract this flaw in Aaron Tallmadge's sole surviving heir, since of late years the old man's affairs had prospered more than ever. About the time of his brother Elijah's death, he had financed a manufacturing enterprise which, starting on a modest scale, had turned out fabulously successful. He was one of the "moneyed men" of the State. In addition to this piece of shrewd speculation, he found the income from his newspaper doubled in the last few years. Ah, yes! nothing was of so much importance now as Ethan's fitness to gather in and husband the golden harvest. If he had been further exemplifying his unthrifty proclivities, if he needed to be told that borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry--Mr. Tallmadge, not trusting to any unperceived facilities for impromptu speech, rehearsed mentally the lecture he would administer. Ethan mustn't run away with the idea that the Tallmadge accumulations were only waiting for a lavish hand to redistribute. The first lesson a young man with his prospects must be made to learn was the value of a dollar. But Ethan wore a gracious kind of reticence wrapped like a mantle round his young life. His grandfather knew very little about him, but the old man had himself belonged to the inarticulate ones of earth, and he never realized that, to this quiet, non-committal grandson of his expression of some sort was a master passion. How should Aaron Tallmadge have suspected such a thing? Some time before this Ethan quietly, alone, without making a sign, had gone through a religious crisis not uncommon to his age and era. "No use to upset the family," he said to himself when he found he had come out on the other side of Tallmadge-Presbyterianism; and he went regularly to church with his grandfather without comment and without misgiving. There were still grave problems to be faced--too grave, in fact, for him to be beguiled into fancying this was one.