They could not dissuade her. And after a time it came to pass that the Quimbey and Kittredge feuds were healed, for how could the heart of a grandfather withstand a toddling spectacle in pink calico that ran away one day some two years later, in company with an adventurous dog, and came down the mountain to the cabin in the Cove, squeezing through the fence rails after the manner of his underfoot world, proceeding thence to the house, where he made himself very merry and very welcome? And when Tim mounted his horse and rode up the mountain with the youngster on the pommel of the saddle, lest Evelina should be out of her mind with fright because of his absence, how should he and old Mrs. Kittredge differ in their respective opinions of his vigorous growth, and grace of countenance, and peartness of manner? On the strength of this concurrence Tim was induced to "'light an' hitch," and he even sat on the cabin porch and talked over the crops with Absalom, who, the next time he went to town, stopped at the cabin in the Cove to bring word how Elnathan Daniel was "thrivin'." The path that Evelina had worn to the crag in those first homesick days on the mountain rapidly extended itself into the Cove, and widened and grew smooth, as the grandfather went up and the grandson came down. [Illustration: OLD QUIMBEY AND HIS GRANDSON] 'WAY DOWN IN LONESOME COVE One memorable night in Lonesome Cove the ranger of the county entered upon a momentous crisis in his life. What hour it was he could hardly have said, for the primitive household reckoned time by the sun when it shone, by the domestic routine when no better might be. It was late. The old crone in the chimney-corner nodded over her knitting. In the trundle-bed at the farther end of the shadowy room were transverse billows under the quilts, which intimated that the small children were numerous enough for the necessity of sleeping crosswise. He had smoked out many pipes, and at last knocked the cinder from the bowl. The great hickory logs had burned asunder and fallen from the stones that served as andirons. He began to slowly cover the embers with ashes, that the fire might keep till morning. His wife, a faded woman, grown early old, was bringing the stone jar of yeast to place close by the hearth, that it might not "take a chill" in some sudden change of the night. It was heavy, and she bent in carrying it. Awkward, and perhaps nervous, she brought it sharply against the shovel in his hands. The clash roused the old crone in the corner. She recognized the situation instantly, and the features that sleep had relaxed into inexpressiveness took on a weary apprehension, which they wore like a habit. The man barely raised his surly black eyes, but his wife drew back humbly with a mutter of apology.