The curtain opened with the young princess, under the spell of the wicked fairy, lying asleep, surrounded by the court people, and the king and queen on their thrones, all likewise sleeping. Lethie, in a rich robe of pink satin, with her pale golden hair falling over the dark velvet couch, was very lovely. But it was in the second scene, where the prince (Ronald Kent, a younger brother of Giles, a beautiful dark-eyed stripling) enters the court, kisses the princess, raises her to her feet, and leads her forward, that Lethie's full loveliness broke upon the assembly. Standing there, the golden veil of her hair streaming down from a coronet of pearls over the rich, flowing folds of satin, her bare neck and arms white as their strings of pearls, her pale cheeks for once pink with excitement, her large eyes starry, her lips gravely smiling, she was a vision of delight. Women, children, men gazed spellbound. Never had they seen, or imagined, anything to compare with this. Her beauty was of the kind that brings tears to the eyes, a pang to the heart, because of its very perfection. And a spiritual quality shone through the fleshly vessel as a clear light in a vase of alabaster. People asked themselves if it were possible this was their Lethie; or was it in truth a fairy princess, a creature not of this earth? Hidden behind the curtain, Isabel watched their faces, and particularly one face, that of Fult. Still wearing his velvet clothes and plumed hat, he stood near one side of the platform, his gaze fixed upon Lethie, in utter surprise and bewilderment; it was as if for the first time he really saw her. Then he leaned forward, to see better. Then he turned and saw the whole assembly hanging rapt upon her beauty. Then he looked again, excitedly, delightedly, with a proud air of proprietorship. His face flushed when he saw that Ronald continued to hold her hand. Isabel remembered Cynthia Fallon's words,--"Hit's allus the newest face with them,"--and realized that she herself had been but an episode in Fult's life; that this wonderful new Lethie, superimposed upon the old, was the girl who, if any girl could, would hold Fult's wild heart. When the curtain was at last drawn over Lethie's loveliness, and the stage cleared, Amy and Virginia rose from the bench where they sat with Aunt Ailsie, and mounted the platform to say a few words of farewell to the people. But Uncle Ephraim was ahead of them. "Women," he said, stepping up beside them, "don't speak the word 'far'well' yet--not till you listen at what we got to say." He began:-- "Women, citizens and friends, this here summer has been the ridge-top of my life, to which all my hopes and prayers and ambitions has p'inted. Hit has likewise been a Mount Nebo, to which I was led up for to gaze out upon the Promised Land. Being, like Moses, allus a man of prayer, I had faith to believe that some day the Lord would stretch out his mighty hand for our deliverance.