ed to
listen to, the men and women of the party in the meanwhile had come
crowding up around Emily until she had the sensation of shaking hands
with a dozen persons at once, and all of them were smiling at her and
saying how glad they were to know she was well again and wouldn't she
live always in Pennyroyal, until Mrs. Barrows was actually thrust to one
side. However, in that instant she managed to unearth Ambrose, who,
appreciating what was taking place, had thought it best to step forth
out of the shadow. Sheepishly he extended his hand to his neighbour and
in the moonlight Susan got a good view of his face.

Her eyes snapped. "Good Lord! what a turn you've done give me!" she
exclaimed, and then taking a closer survey: "Ambrose Thompson, I ain't
more'n halfway suspicioned 'bout you and Em'ly Dunham before this night,
but ef ever there's a surprise party in this village when you don't get
there first, why I'd like to know!"

PART THREE

HIS THIRD WIFE

"_Is there no ending of mirth?
Will time former unloosen
Fresh fonts clear, bubbling, and bright
From the drainless youth of the earth?_"

CHAPTER XIV

THIRTY YEARS

PENNYROYAL bore witness to the permanence of material things untroubled
by spirit. Thirty years had passed since Ambrose Thompson's last
honeymoon, and yet the little town had not greatly changed.

One afternoon in October, when from the same double row of linden trees,
with only here and there a fallen comrade, a shower of wrinkled golden
leaves was filling the ruts in the same road that once held the blossoms
of an earlier spring, the door of a cottage opened and an elderly man
stepped forth, humming a tune and began walking slowly down toward the
front gate. He was dressed in gala attire and, observing a bed of purple
asters that were growing near his path, stooped to gather one of the
flowers. Getting up with a groan, he placed a hand on the small of his
back, remarking testily: "Looks like I was gettin' powerful onlimber
these days," and then jigging stiffly about to disprove his assertion he
placed the aster in his buttonhole.

Pennyroyal was unusually stirred up over something, for at five o'clock
her streets were filling with people in their best clothes, all moving
toward the same spot--the new red brick Baptist church, with a cupola,
which stood where Brother Bibbs's old frame meeting house had once held
place.

A carriag