It was the cruelest of the changes--the one hardest to bear; and it
drove the boy back into the dumb reticence which was a part of his
birthright. Had they left him nothing by which to remember the old
days--days which were already beginning to take on the glamour of
unutterable happiness past?

Nevertheless, he could not help looking curiously for the new home--the
old being irretrievably sacked and ruined; but there were more shocks to
come between. One of Mr. Duxbury Farley's side issues had been a real
estate boom for Paradise Valley proper. South Tredegar being prosperous,
the time had seemed propitious for the engrafting of the country-house
idea. By some means, marvelous to those who knew Major Dabney's
tenacious land-grip, the promoter had bought in the wooded hillsides
facing the mountain, cut them into ten-acre residence plots, run a
graveled drive on the western side of the creek to front them, and
presto! the thing was done.

Tom saw well-kept lawns, park-like groves and pretentious country villas
where he had once trailed Nance Jane through the "dark woods," and his
father told him the names and circumstance of the owners as they drove
up the pike. There was Rockwood, the summer home of the Stanleys, and
The Dell, owned, and inhabited at intervals, by Mr. Young-Dickson, of
the South Tredegar potteries. Farther along there was Fairmount, whose
owner was a wealthy cotton-seed buyer; Rook Hill, which Tom remembered
as the ancient roosting ground of the migratory winter crows; and
Farnsworth Park, ruralizing the name of its builder. On the most
commanding of the hillsides was a pile of rough-cut Tennessee marble
with turrets and many gables, rejoicing in the classic name of Warwick
Lodge. This, Tom was told, was the country home of Mr. Farley himself,
and the house alone had cost a fortune.

At the turn in the pike where you lost sight finally of the iron-works,
there was a new church, a miniature in native stone of good old Stephen
Hawker's church of Morwenstow. Tom gasped at the sight of it, and
scowled when he saw the gilded cross on the tower.

"Catholic!" he said. "And right here in our valley!"

"No," said the father; "it's 'Piscopalian. Colonel Farley is one o' the
vestries, or whatever you call 'em, of St. Michael's yonder in town. I
reckon he wanted to get his own kind o' people round him out here, so he
built this church, and they run it as a sort of side-show to the big
church. Your mammy alw