ark-eyed creature of more than usual beauty whom Caleb had
seen, as through the boy's own eyes, in the promise of the years.
Caleb had long before given up all hope, but he wondered just the same.
And then there came a morning when he didn't have to wonder any more.
There came a morning when that self-same scene was staged again by
Chance--staged with Caleb for an audience. There came a morning when
Stephen O'Mara did return.

More than a few times in those intervening years the Hunter home had
been closed. Sarah Hunter developed an uneasy restlessness which would
have worried her brother had it not been for the light of wistful
expectancy which never left her eyes. She developed what her brother
termed a habit of "seeing America first and last, and in the interval
between." But he, beneath his jocularity, was glad enough to accompany
her upon those rambling journeys which, without itinerary, led them
from coast to coast and he never smiled--at least not so that she might
see him--even though he was certain that she, in her simplicity of
spirit, was really looking for the boy.

All winter and throughout the summer, too, the Hunter place had been
closed, until that day in late October. It had been a warm week--a
week of such unseasonable humidity for the hills that Caleb, rising
somewhat before his usual hour, had blamed his sleeplessness, as usual,
upon the weather. He was glad to be home again that morning; he had
been so lonely away from home that he was warmed unaccountably by the
thought that Allison was in the hills, too. And he was sure of that
fact, for the night before, when their train pulled into the station
which occupied the spot where Allison's mill-yards had stood before,
the bright brass work upon the private car of the owner of the stucco
place next his own had been unmistakable.

Caleb was even wondering if Barbara would be with her father on this
trip. Barbara had, he knew, been two years on the continent,
"finishing," Allison called it, always with a wry face and a gesture
toward his wallet pocket. He was wondering, as he came down the
stairs, if she would ask him again if--if . . . and then, at the sight
of a seated figure outside on the top step of the veranda, he pulled up
sharp in the doorway.

Caleb didn't have to wonder any longer!

The attitude of that figure before him was so like the picture which
time had been unable to erase--so absolutely identical in everything
save garb an