Doctor Carey looked back to wave good-by just in time to see Virginia Aydelot coming toward Thaine, who stood watching the buggy. Instantly the pretty face of Jane Aydelot came to his mind, her face as she had looked on the night when they sat by the wood fire in the Aydelot farmhouse. Against that picture stood the reality of Virginia with her richer coloring. "Nor storm nor stress can rob her of her beauty," he thought. "However sweet and self-sacrificing Jane Aydelot may be, the Plains would have broken her long ago." He turned about at once and came back to where Thaine stood beside his mother. "This is Jim Shirley's little girl, Mrs. Aydelot," he said, gently patting Leigh's shoulder. "That's my wife," little Thaine said gravely. "We will go and live at the purple notches when I come home from the war." Virginia's heart warmed toward the motherless little one, and Leigh understood her at once. Nor once in all the years that followed did the two fail each other. The Cloverdale homestead never had known such a gala fixing as Jim Shirley had kept there for nearly a week awaiting the doctor's return. Truly, love is genius in itself, and only genius could have put so many quaint and attractive touches to such common surroundings as now embellished the little four-roomed house in the bend of Grass River. Doctor Carey tied his horses to the post beside the trail, and, lifting Leigh from the buggy, he said: "Uncle Jim is up there waiting for you, and oh, so glad, so glad to have you come. Go and meet him, Leigh." Leigh smoothed her little gray wool frock down with her dainty little hands. Then, pushing back the gray cap with its scarlet quill from her forehead where the golden hair fell in soft rings, she passed up the grassy way to meet Jim Shirley. He could never have looked bigger and handsomer than he did at that moment. In his eyes all the heart hunger of years seemed centered as he watched the little six-year-old child coming towards him. Just before reaching the doorway, she paused, and with that clear penetration only a little child possesses, she looked up into the strong man's face. "Uncle Jim. My Uncle Jim," she cried. "I can love you always." Jim gathered her close in his arms, and she clung about his neck, softly patting his brown cheek as they passed into the house. While all unseen, the light of love went in with them, a light that should never fade from the hearthstone, driving loneliness and sorrow from it, far away.