when Marmaduke Wharne--who had come this fall again
to stay his three days, and talk over their business,--sat with him
in his study, just where they had sat two years and a little more
ago, and Hazel and Desire ran up and down stairs together, in and
out upon their busy Wednesday errands,--Marmaduke said to Titus,--

"Afterwards is a long time, friend; but I mistrust you have found
the comfort, as well as the providence, of 'next of kin?'"

"Afterwards _is_ a long time," said Titus Oldways, gravely; "but the
Lord's line of succession stretches all the way through."

And that same night he had his other old friend, Miss Craydocke, in;
and he brought two papers that he had ready, quietly out to be
signed, each with four names: "Titus Oldways," by itself, on the one
side; on the other,--

"RACHEL FROKE,
MARMADUKE WHARNE,
KEREN-HAPPUCH CRAYDOCKE."

And one of those two papers--which are no further part of the
present story, seeing that good old Uncle Titus is at this moment
alive and well, as he has a perfect right, and is heartily welcome
to be, whether the story ever comes to a regular winding up or
not--was laid safely away in a japanned box in a deep drawer of his
study table; and Marmaduke Wharne put the other in his pocket.

He and Titus knew. I myself guess, and perhaps you do; but neither
you nor I, nor Rachel, nor Keren-happuch, know for certain; and it
is no sort of matter whether we do or not.

The "next of kin" is a better and a deeper thing than any claim of
law or register of bequest can show. Titus Oldways had found that
out; and he had settled in his mind, to his restful and satisfied
belief, that God, to the last moment of His time, and the last
particle of His created substance, can surely care for and order and
direct His own.

Is that end and moral enough for a two years' watchful trial and a
two years' simple tale?

XXI.

THE HORSESHOE.

They laid out the Waite Place in this manner:--

Right into the pretty wooded pasture, starting from a point a little
way down the road from the old house, they projected a roadway which
swept round, horseshoe fashion, till it met itself again within a
space of some twenty yards or so; and this sweep made a
frontage--upon its inclosed bit of natural, moss-turfed green,
sprinkled with birch and pine and oak trees, and with gray
out-croppings of rock here and there--for the twenty houses, behind
which opened the r