On his face there was a look of rapturous joy, and on his lips a smile as if they were framing the loved name of Maude when death came and sealed them forever. Around him was no sign of struggle or pain, for the covering was not disturbed; and the physician when he came said he must have died quietly and possibly instantly without a note of warning. They buried him beside his daughter and then Dolly was alone in the great house, which became so intolerable to her that she left it early in August and took possession of the cottage on the Ridge, which, though scarcely less lovely, was not as large as the Park House and did not seem haunted with the ghosts of the dead.
And so it happened that Mrs. Crawford alone stood in the door-way to welcome the travellers when, late in the bright October afternoon they came, tired and dusty, but oh, so glad to be home once more and to feel that now it really was home to all intents and purposes.
'I never was so glad in my life, and if Uncle Frank were here I should be perfectly happy,' Jerrie cried, as she threw herself upon Mrs. Crawford's neck, hugging and kissing her awhile, and then taking her baby from the nurse she put it into the old lady's arms, saying as she did so:
'Another grandson for you—Harold's baby. Isn't he a beauty?'
And little Tracy was a most beautiful child, with his father's features and complexion, but Jerrie's expression and ways, and Mrs. Crawford felt, as she folded him to her bosom and cried over him, that he would be the crowning joy of her old age. At first Harold puzzled and perplexed her, he was so changed from the Harold who had shingled roofs and painted barns and worked in Peterkin's furnace. Foreign travel and prosperity set well upon him, and one could scarcely have found a more refined or polished young man than Harold as he moved about the premises, every inch a gentleman and every inch the master, with a bright smile and pleasant word for everyone, whether of high or low degree. He had known what poverty meant, with slights on account of it, and had risen above it all, and remembering the days when he worked in the Tracy fields and envied his companions their leisure and freedom from toil, he had resolved that, if possible, some portion of mankind should be happier because of him. He knew he was very fine-looking, for his tailor told him so, and his mirror told him so, and Jerrie told him so twenty times a day as she kissed his handsome face, and his grandmother frequently took off her spectacles to wipe away her glad tears as she looked at her boy and felt so proud of him.
All Shannondale hastened to call upon the travellers, and no one was louder or more demonstrative in his welcome than Peterkin, who called himself their kin, and was very proud of the connection and of his son Thomas, for whom he made many inquiries. It did not take long for the family to settle down into every-day quiet, Jerrie proving herself a competent and thorough housekeeper, while Harold was to all intents and purposes the head to whom everyone deferred and went for directions. Arthur, who had half died from seasickness, had at once taken to his rooms and his old mode of life, telling Harold and Jerrie to do what they liked and not bother him. One change, however, he made; he put Harold into the office in the place of Colvin, who had done his business for so many years, and who was glad to give it up, while Harold was glad to take it, as it gave him something to do and did not greatly interfere with his law studies, which he immediately resumed, applying himself so closely that he was admitted to practice within the year, and in time became one of the ablest lawyers in the State.
And now there remains but little to do except to gather up the few tangled threads of our story and bring it to a close. For another year the Raymonds and St. Claires remained abroad, and then, just before they sailed for home, there was a double wedding one morning in London, when Fred and Dick were the bridegrooms, and Marian and Nina were the brides. Dick had not forgotten the night under the pines, but he had ceased to remember it with pain; and when he asked Marian to be his wife he told her of it, and of his old love for Jerrie, while she in turn told him of a grave among the Alps by which she had stood with an aching heart, while strangers buried from her sight forever a young artist from Boston, who, had he lived, would have made it impossible for her to be the wife of Dick St. Claire. But Allan was dead, and Jerrie was a wife and mother, and so across the graves of a living and a dead love the two grasped hands, and, forgetting the past as far as possible, were content with the new happiness offered to them.
It is five years now since Harold and Jerrie came home, and toddling about the house is a little girl two years old, whom they call Gretchen, and who has all the soft beauty of the Gretchen in the picture, together with Jerrie's stronger and more marked features. This little girl is Arthur's idol, and has succeeded in luring him from his den, in which, until she came, he was staying closer than ever. Now, however, he is with her constantly, either in the house or in the grounds, or sitting under a tree holding her in his lap, while he talks his strange talk to the other Gretchen, and the child listens wonderingly, with her great blue eyes fixed upon him.
'This is our grandchild,' he will say, nodding to the space beside him, while little Gretchen nods too, as if she also saw a figure sitting there. 'Our grandchild and Jerrie's baby, and you are its grandmother. Grandma Gretchen! That's funny;' and then he laughs, and baby laughs, and says after him, lispingly, 'Danma Detchen, that's funny.'