“Nothing has happened to Roger Tabor,” panted Mr. Arp. “We’re going this way, not that.” They had come to the gate, and as she turned to the right he pulled her sharply to the left.
“Where are we going?” she demanded.
“To your Uncle Jonas’s.”
“Why?” she cried, in supreme astonishment. “What do you want to take me there for? Don’t you know that he doesn’t like me—that he has stopped speaking to me?”
“Yes,” said the old man, grimly; “he has stopped speaking to everybody.”
These startling words told Ariel that her uncle was dead. They did not tell her what she was soon to learn—that he had died rich, and that, failing other heirs, she and her grandfather had inherited his fortune.
II
It was Sunday in Canaan—Sunday some years later. Joe Louden was sitting in the shade of Main Street bridge, smoking a cigar. He was alone; he was always alone, for he had been away a long time, and had made few friends since his return.
A breeze wandered up the river and touched the leaves and grass to life. The young corn, deep green in the bottom-land, moved with a [v]staccato flurry; the stirring air brought a smell of blossoms; the distance took on faint lavender hazes which blended the outlines of the fields, lying like square coverlets on the long slope of rising ground beyond the bottom-land, and empurpled the blue woodland shadows of the groves.
For the first time it struck Joe that it was a beautiful day. He opened his eyes and looked about him whimsically. Then he shook his head again. A lady had just emerged from the bridge and was coming toward him.