Chapter VII: Part 7

"Mrs. Steering! That's something of a title, too, isn't it? But, after all, who is so proud of newcome titles as the Superintendent of the Gulch Mine, Francois Placide DeLassus Bernique, eh, Mistaire Steering?"

"Old chap's satisfaction is good to live in. Oh, we are all happy, happy! Elsie and Carington seem to be hitting it off well, too, don't they?" Steering heaved a benevolent sigh, as though he felt that he had missed something whose missing was little short of escape. He regarded the magnificent, glowing woman beside him worshipfully. "Hark!" he cried next, "Piney's happy too, dear boy. That's the best of all! Hear that!"

From the river road below the garden came the sound of the pony's galloping feet and down by the sheen of the river, the tramp-boy was outlined presently, a gallant young figure, full of life and fire.

"I'm a-goin' to meet you at the station," he called up to them. "I'm a-sayin' good-bye to Mizzourah! D'you think Italy's a-goin' to beat this, Miss Sally?" He indicated the shimmering river, the woods beyond, the wonderful sky in the west, with a half-homesick gesture, then dashed on down the river road, gay with anticipation again, carolling the potato song lustily:

"_The taters grow an' grow, they grow!_"

"That was a fine idea of yours, Sally, to send him to Italy. I suppose he will have to be disappointed, for Italy, with him, is all dream-stuff; still, life would never have been fulfilled for Piney without Italy."

"No, it wouldn't. And he won't be disappointed. You see, it's the music in him. That will count big some day. And Italy is the place for him to find himself. He won't be disappointed, and we shan't be disappointed in him. He is worth his chance. But see how low the sun is, Bruce. We, too, must say good-bye to Missouri now, if we are to make the train. Take your last look until we come back to it all."

The fragrance trembled about them. The pale wide Di quivered below them. Far to the west flamed the sunset. Down through the ether dropped great swaying draperies of orange and purple. Fair into the heart of heaven unrolled a path of violet and blue and rose.

Young, ancestral, sweet, she stood there beside him, his. Steering turned his eyes from the dusky-gold radiance of her face and hair to the land beyond, where his hills billowed toward him with mighty promise, submerging him again, reclaiming him, as they had done on a lonely day not one year gone, making a Missourian of him, as it had done on that day. The girl, the land, he, all the world, seemed banded in a golden irradiation.

"Oh, Missouri! Missouri!" he cried, with a joyful, trembling, upleaping of spirit, his arms shut close about his wife, his eyes coming back to her as to the spirit of this new and wonderful West, "You glorious State! You sweet, wide land! I adore you!"

THE END.

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ADVERTISEMENTS

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By Henry Harland

Author of "The Cardinal's Snuff Box"

MY FRIEND PROSPERO

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Frontispiece in colors by Louis Loeb.

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By Stanley J. Weyman

Author of "A Gentleman of France"

THE LONG NIGHT

Geneva in the early days of the 17th century; a ruffling young theologue new to the city; a beautiful and innocent girl, suspected of witchcraft; a crafty scholar and metaphysician seeking to give over the city into the hands of the Savoyards; a stern and powerful syndic whom the scholar beguiles to betray his office by promises of an elixir which shall save him from his fatal illness; a brutal soldier of fortune; these are the elements of which Weyman has composed the most brilliant and thrilling of his romances. Claude Mercier, the student, seeing the plot in which the girl he loves is involved, yet helpless to divulge it, finds at last his opportunity when the treacherous men of Savoy are admitted within Geneva's walls, and in a night of whirlwind fighting saves the city by his courage and address. For fire and spirit there are few chapters in modern literature such as those which picture the splendid defence of Geneva, by the staid, churchly, heroic burghers, fighting in their own blood under the divided leadership of the fat Syndic, Baudichon, and the bandy-legged sailor, Jehan Brosse, winning the battle against the armed and armored forces of the invaders.

Illustrated by Solomon J. Solomon.

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By Henry Seton Merriman

Author of "The Sowers," etc.

BARLASCH OF THE GUARD

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Illustrated by the Kinneys.

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By A. Conan Doyle

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For all his lumbering vanity he is a genial old soul and a remarkably vivid story-teller.

Illustrated by W. B. Wollen.

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