" Then
remembering herself, "I would not let him speak. But he said he hated
'Rockport.' Oh, what can it all mean? How could he be so good to me and
then deceive me so? Shall I believe Lettie, or O'mie?"

Kneeling there in the deep shadows of the cliff-side with the Neosho
gurgling darkly below her, and the long shafts of pink radiance from the
hidden sunset illumining the sky above her, Marjie prayed for strength
to bear her burden, for courage to meet whatever must come to her, and
for the assurance of divine Love although now her lover, as well as her
father, was lost to her. The simple pleading cry of a grief-stricken
heart it was. Heaven heard that prayer, and Marjie went down the hill
with womanly grace and courage and faith to face whatever must befall
her in the new life opening before her.

In the days that followed my little girl was more than ever the idol of
Springvale. Her sweet, sunny nature now had a new beauty. Her sorrow she
hid away so completely there were few who guessed what her thoughts
were. Lettie Conlow was not deceived, for jealousy has sharp eyes. O'mie
understood, for O'mie had carried a sad, hungry heart underneath his
happy-go-lucky carelessness all the years of his life. Aunt Candace was
a woman who had overcome a grief of her own, and had been cheery and
bright down the years. She knew the mark of conquest in the face. And
lastly, my father, through his innate power to read human nature,
watched Marjie as if she were his own child. Quietly, too, so quietly
that nobody noticed it, he became a guardian over her. Where she went
and what she did he knew as well as Jean Pahusca, watching in the lilac
clump, long ago. For fourteen years he had come and gone to our house on
Cliff Street up and down the gentler slope two blocks to the west of
Whately's. Nobody knew, until it had become habitual, when he changed
his daily walk homeward up the steeper climb that led him by Marjie's
house farther down the street. Nobody realized, until it was too common
for comment, how much a part of all the social life of Springvale my
father had become. He had come to Kansas a widower, but gossip long ago
gave up trying to do anything with him. And now, as always, he was a
welcome factor everywhere, a genial, courteous gentleman, whose dignity
of character matched his stern uprightness and courage in civic matters.
Among all the things for which I bless his memory, not the least of them
was this strong, unostent