plenty left, and that minin' stock'll make you a rich man.
It's all yours and your mother's. I wish it was more,' says he, 'for
you're a son that a king'd be proud of.'

"Them was about the last words he said. Dr. Pendleton said he wouldn't
live through the night, and sure enough he begun to sink as soon as
the young parson left, and he died the next mornin' about daybreak.
Jane Ann said jest before he died he opened his eyes and mumbled
somethin', and Milly seemed to know what he wanted, for she reached
over and put Richard's hand on hers and Dick's, and he breathed his
last jest that way.

"Milly wouldn't let a soul touch the corpse, but her and Richard. She
was a mighty good hand at layin' out the dead, and them two washed and
shrouded the body and laid it in the coffin, and the next day at the
funeral Milly walked on one side o' the old Squire and Richard on the
other, and the old man leaned on Richard like he'd found a prop for
his last days.

"I ain't much of a hand to believe in signs, but there was one thing
the day of the buryin' that I shall always ricollect. It had been
rainin' off and on all day,--a soft, misty sort o' rain that's good
for growin' things,--but while they were fillin' up the grave and
smoothin' it off, the sun broke out over in the west, and when we
turned around to leave the grave there was the brightest, prettiest
rainbow you ever saw; and when Milly and Richard got into the old
Squire's carriage and rode home with him, that rainbow was right in
front of 'em all the way home. It didn't mean much for Milly and the
Squire, but I couldn't help thinkin' it was a promise o' better things
for Richard, and maybe a hope for pore Dick.

"Milly didn't live long after this. They found her dead in her bed one
mornin'. The doctor said it was heart disease; but it's my belief that
she jest died because she thought she could do Richard a better turn
by dyin' than livin'. She'd lived for him twenty years and seen him
come into his rights, and I reckon she thought her work was done.
Dyin' for people is a heap easier'n livin' for 'em, anyhow.

"The old Squire didn't outlive Milly many years, and when he died
Richard come into all the Elrod property. You've seen the Elrod place,
ain't you, child? That white house with big pillars and porches in
front of it. It's three miles further on the pike, and folks'll drive
out there jest to look at it. I've heard 'em call it a 'colonial
mansion,' or some such nam