e it, and that you sacrificed your
own comfort and father's to give it to me.

I wish Oliver could get something to do in Dinwiddie. He will never be
happy here, and we could live on so much less money at home--in a little
house near the rectory.

Your loving child,
VIRGINIA.

CHAPTER III

THE RETURN

On a February morning five years later, Mrs. Pendleton, who was
returning from her daily trip to the market, met Susan Treadwell at the
corner of Old Street.

"You are coming up to welcome Jinny, aren't you, Susan?" she asked. "The
train gets in at four o'clock."

"Why, of course. I couldn't sleep a wink until I'd seen her. It has been
seven years, and it seems a perfect eternity."

"She hasn't changed much--at least she hadn't six months ago when I was
out there at the birth of her last baby. The little thing lived only two
hours, you know, and I thought at first his death would kill her."

"It was a great blow--but she has been fortunate never to have had a
day's sickness with the other three. I am dying to see them--especially
the eldest. That's your namesake, isn't it?"

"Yes, that's Lucy. She's six years old now, and as good as an angel, but
she hasn't fulfilled her promise of beauty. Virginia says she was the
prettiest baby she ever saw."

"Everybody says that Jenny, the youngest, is a perfect beauty."

"That's why her father makes so much of her, I reckon. I told him when I
was out there that he oughtn't to show such a difference between them.
Do you know, Susan, I wouldn't say it to anybody else, but I don't
believe Oliver has a real fondness for children. He gets tired of having
them always about, and that makes him impatient. Now, Virginia is a born
mother, just like her grandmother and all the women of our family."

"I should think Oliver would be crazy about the boy. He was named after
his father, too."

"Virginia felt she ought to name him Henry, but we call him Harry. No,
Oliver hardly ever takes any notice of him. I don't mean, of course,
that he isn't nice and kind to them--but he isn't wrapped up in them
heart and soul as Virginia is. I really believe he is more absorbed in
this play he has written than he is in the children."

"I am so glad to hear that two of his plays are going to be staged.
That's splendid, isn't it?"

"He is coming back to Dinwiddie because of it. Now that he is assured of
recognition, he says he is going to devote all his time to writing. Poor
fe