“I felt so fine and looked so foolish. What must Craig and Alice and Miss Mason have thought of me?” he said to himself. “Yes, I was a fool,—a dum fool, and I looked like a fool in ’em. Dot said so, she knows, and I’ll never wear ’em again. I’ll put ’em out of sight, where nobody can see the old man’s folly, and mabby, bimeby, when they send a box to the heathen, I’ll put ’em in. Pity to have ’em et with moths when they cost so much, and only wore once.” He carried them to the attic,—gave one long regretful look at them and packed them away in the hair trunk with Taylor’s Tavern and Johnny’s blanket. A few days later there came a line from Alice written on board the ship. The next day there was a letter from Helen, telling of her house and the dinners and lunches and receptions she was attending and giving. She spoke also of Jeff, who was doing well in school, and of Mark, the best husband in the world. “I’m glad on’t,” Uncle Zach said, as Dot read the letter to him. “It seems as if they was my children, Alice and Craig, Mark and Helen, and Jeff. I’m glad they are so happy.” Mrs. Taylor had not her husband’s hopeful nature. If the sun shone bright in the morning she wanted to see what the weather was at noon before admitting that it was fine, and now she answered, “Wait a few years and see what happens.” “I shan’t wait. I’m glad they are happy now,” Uncle Zach replied, resolutely keeping his eyes on the present, and never dreaming of the drama which the future was to unroll and in which his so called children were to take an active part. END OF PART I. PART II. CHAPTER I. FANNY AND ROY. The October sun was shining brightly into the windows of a handsome drawing room in New York, where two young people were talking earnestly together. The girl was scarcely twenty and looked younger. She was short and slight and dainty and sweet, with beautiful blue eyes which laughed when she laughed and gave a wonderful brightness to her face. There was something peculiar in their expression which was rapid and searching and made the young man beside her wonder if what they saw in him boded good or ill to his suit. He was twenty-two, tall and straight and broad shouldered, with something in his voice and features and manner which reminded one of the July morning twenty-three years before when Craig Mason sat on the north piazza of the Prospect House and talked to Alice Tracy. To one who had been in Ridgefield that summer there would have come back the scent of the new mown hay and the perfume of the white pond lilies Alice wore in her belt, and in the young man’s eyes he would have seen a likeness to Alice’s eyes, with thicker lashes and heavier brows.