who pass you on the streets all smile and nod, stranger though
you are. And if you happen to be at the little undistinguished depot
just as the 6:10 pulls in, you will see pouring joyously out of it the
Green Valley men, those who every day go to the great city to work and
every night come thankfully back to their little home town to live.

They hurry along in twos and threes, waving newspaper and hand greetings
to the home folks and the store proprietors who stand in their doorways
to watch them go by.

There is a fragrant smell of supper in the air and a slight feel of
coming rain. Here and there a mother calls a belated child. Doors slam,
dogs bark and a baby frets loudly somewhere. In somebody's chicken coop
a frightened, dozing hen gargles its throat and then goes to sleep again.
The frogs along Silver Creek and in Wimple's pond are going full blast,
and in her fragrant herb garden stands Grandma Wentworth. She is looking
at the gold-smudged western sky and watching the sweet, spring night sift
softly down on Green Valley.

She stands there a long time sensing the great tide of new life that is
flushing the world into a new, tingling beauty. She sees the lacy
loveliness of the birches, the budding green glory of her garden. Then
she smiles as she tells herself:

"It won't be long now till the lilacs bloom again. Nanny will be here
soon now. And who knows! Cynthia's boy may come back to live in his
mother's old home."

CHAPTER III

THE LAST OF THE CHURCHILLS

Even in beautiful Los Angeles days can be rainy and full of gnawing
cold and gloom.

On such a day Joshua Churchill lay dying. He could have died days
before had he cared to let himself do so. But he was holding on grimly
to the life he no longer valued and held off as grimly the death he
really craved. He was waiting for the coming of the boy who was so
soon to be the last of the Churchills.

He meant, this grim old man, to live long enough to greet the boy whom
he remembered first as a baby, then as a little chap of ten, and later
as a shy boy of seventeen.

Joshua Churchill had been to India several times. But he had never
stayed long. He said that no man who had spent the greater part of his
life in Green Valley could ever be happy or feel at home anywhere else.

Joshua Churchill went to India to see his daughter and grandson; but
mostly to coax that daughter's wonderful husband to give up his
fanatically zealous work amon