ctor came
in and said, "Time is up, Mrs. Penhallow."

"What--already, Tom?"

"But I want to know more," said the Colonel. "Wasn't there a
rummage-sale--"

"Yes; but now you must let Mrs. Penhallow go. You are mending daily.
To-morrow Mrs. Penhallow may come again, and there will be to-morrow, and
many happy to-morrows." She went out and downstairs singing in a low
sweet voice--a long lost habit.

If to watch with an aching heart the hopeless decay of a mind be the most
distressing of all human trials, surely there can be few greater joys
than to see a disordered intellect emerge day by day into possession of
its long lost capacities. James Penhallow was soon able to sign a power
of attorney enabling John to reconstruct the old partnership with his own
name added to the firm.

Very soon town and county shared in the growth of prosperity which
followed the war. Rivers was the only one who was not what his friends
desired, and never was his melancholy mood more noticeable.

The master of Grey Pine was, of course, many months in recovering his
normal state of mind. The man's bodily strength had not been seriously
impaired, and the return of his natural gaiety and his eager resumption
one by one of his old habits filled his home with that cheerfulness which
is the relieving and precious gift of convalescence. Penhallow's
remembrances of the war were rapidly recovered as he talked to John,
but much of his recent life was buried in the strange graveyard of
memory, which gave up no reminding ghosts of what all who loved the man
feared might haunt him.

When satisfied of the certainty of his uncle's recovery John Penhallow
hurt by Leila's continual coldness and seeing for it no reasonable
explanation gave more and more time to the mills in which the family
fortunes were so seriously concerned. On the first of September he was
glad to go away on business which carried him to several of the large
cities, and resulted in orders which would keep the works busy for many
months. He no longer wrote to Leila, nor did he expect letters from her.
He considered any nearer relation than friendship to be at an end, but to
lose that also seemed to him a quite too needlessly cruel loss, and now
for the first time on returning he approached Grey Pine without pleasure.
He had telegraphed to have a horse sent to meet him at Westways Crossing,
that he might ride on to the mills after seeing his uncle.

Having taken the night train, it wa