d the
watch maintained, on all occasions, a system of chronology peculiarly its
own.

As we drove back to Wallencamp, Grandma Keeler, her great heart close to
Nature that sunny afternoon, beguiled the way with a gentle hilarity
which never shocked or offended, but Becky put her hand often in mine,
looking up with the old helpless, pleading expression in her eyes--Becky,
I knew, would remember longest.

Sometimes, as my hand wandered almost unconsciously to caress the
precious coin in my pocket, instead of the wild tract of stunted cedars
through which our road lay, I fancied I saw the great elms of Newtown,
the wide, straight street, the familiar house, an open door, and--ah! It
wasn't the first time I had been taken in at that door, the survivor of
wrecked ambition and misguided hope, only to hear my shortcomings made
tenderly light of, my most desperate follies lovingly ignored and
forgiven.

But I had meant that it should be so different this time! I had gone out
as a missionary; and deeper than ever in my consciousness, I must feel
the want and woe of the returning prodigal; the same old story, the
ever-recurring failure. It seemed as though all the wonder and impatience
might well go out of my despair.

Then as I lent myself more and more to the contemplation of that home
picture, how restful and happy it grew! but poor old Wallencamp--for we
were nearing the little settlement now, and the sun was fast
westering--poor, squalid, solitary, beautiful Wallencamp, as I looked
down upon it from the brow of Stony Hill, thrilled me with a troubled
sense of some diviner, some half-comprehended glory.

The crimson glow had not quite faded in the sky when I took my last walk
across the fields to where the new grave had been made on the hillside.
This is the new burying-ground of the Wallencampers; the old one lies
a mile farther up the river, near the Indian encampment. Here I saw more
than one simple slab, bearing the name of Cradlebow. Here little Bess
lies, too. The hill, meet for such sublime repose, looks ever calmly on
the humble, straggling homes of the Wallencampers below, and sees the
lonely river winding near, and hears, by night and day, the monody of
deeper waters.

I thought the voice of that great ocean of restlessness sounding along
the shore might quiet my unrest, but the beat of the waves, the growing
gloom of that still evening hour, oppressed me with a feeling unutterably
sad. I could not bear it, a