rewder men.
Yonder was the tree from which Enos had been shot by his own
brother--who was dead himself now, killed, with many others, in that
"skirmish" which John could never cease thinking that he, had he but
been here, might have averted. Over there were the two churches, and one
window of Ravenel's house. March had not been in that house a fourth as
many times as he had been prettily upbraided for not coming.

"Fannie's grea-atly cha-anged!" Parson Tombs said, with solemn triumph.

John had dreamily assented. The change he had noticed most was that the
old zest of living was gone from her still beautiful black eyes, and
that her freckles had augmented. He had met her oftenest in church. She
had the Suez Sunday-school's primary class, and more than filled the
wide vacancy caused by Miss Mary Salter's marriage to the other pastor.
These two wives had grown to be close friends. On the Sunday to which we
have alluded they had their infants baptized together. Fannie's was a
girl and did not cry. Johanna, in the gallery, did, when Father Tombs,
with dripping hand, said,

"Rose, I baptize thee."

Tears had started also in the eyes of at least one other: Fannie's
guest, as we say, whose presence was unusual and had not escaped remark.
"The wonder is," Miss Martha had said, "that she has time, or any
strength left, to ever come in to town-church at all, with that whole
overgrown Rosemont on her hands the way it is! If I had a sister no
older than she is--with that look on her face every time she falls into
a study"--she stopped; then sharply--"I tell you, that man Garnet"--and
stopped again.

From the tower's south window there was a wide view up and down the
Swanee and across the bridge, into Blackland. March never looked that
way but he found himself staring at those unfinished smelting works.
Smart saplings were growing inside the roofless walls, and you could buy
the whole plant for the cost of its brick and stone.

The north window view hurt still worse. The middle distance was dotted
with half a dozen "follies" "for sale," each with its small bunch of
workmen's cottages, some empty, some full, alas! and all treeless and
grassless under the blazing sun. Far beyond to the right, shading away
from green to blue, rose the hills of Widewood--lost Widewood!--hiding
other "tied-up capital" and more stranded labor. For scattered through
those lovely forests were scores, hundreds, of peasants from across
seas, to every s