The wild storm went down that night, though the rolling sea and the curling breakers of the Sound continued to heave for hours, throwing out in the darkness broad lines and crests of phosphorescence that made them look like fluid white fire. Then the rain came, in torrents; and it was well that it came, for the danger to the inflammable pine-plantations, from the conflagration in Elbow Crook, had become alarming. Not even the sullen fierceness of that furnace--in which the swamp-woods, with all their intricacies of flickering boughs, like some gigantic red coral work, were melting down--could withstand the providential rain-streams. The fire faded away as if by magic; and the next day, when Hedson went out, with scores of other gazers, to look at the expanse of charred _débris_ where the wood had been, he remarked tersely (but in an undertone) to Lance: "That property is now worth just one hundred percent more for our purpose than it was day before yesterday. The clearing has been done free of charge." By the middle of the summer the county awoke to the fact that a syndicate of Northern capitalists had purchased the tract and were going to develop it into a prodigious vegetable garden. The reed-pulp paper-mill went up; there was an immense quantity of ditching and levelling carried on in the swamp. Little houses began to make their appearance; now dwellers came to live in them; and a school and church were found to be necessary. There is now a flourishing community in that place; and while Lance, I am glad to say, has made a good deal of money, his pleasure has grown largely from the knowledge that he has brought about improvements which others also enjoy. Sylv acts as his chief adviser and confidential agent. Dennie's accident left him somewhat lame, but he has still found it possible to be of service in some of Lance's undertakings. He prefers, however, to retain a degree of independence by living on the island with Aunty Losh, and following more or less his old employment in a superior dug-out schooner, which has replaced the sloop. On the island he has remained ever since the marriage of Sylv and Adela and their installation in a pretty house which was built for them, near enough to the manor to make it convenient for the children of Jessie and Adela to meet often when they shall grow a little older. One slight question came up, I must admit, as to who had the best right to appropriate the old Wharton Hall motto. Sylv acknowledged that it belonged primarily to Lance, by inheritance from Guy Wharton; but, then, had it not been handed down to Adela as well? The point was settled without dispute; for Sylv's house was built before Lance was ready to remodel the manor, and when the plans were submitted to Lance he proposed--with Jessie's permission--that he should be allowed to contribute as his gift a tablet for the hall, on which were to be shown (not cut in, but raised in bold relief) the lines beginning