[Illustration: 075]
THE leaves of the maples before the small white manse were red with
their October hue, and the sun rays were slanting low across the little
front yard at a late afternoon angle, when David, his hat in his hand
and his long black coat thrown open, paused a few moments at his gate to
greet Rose Hinch, who was approaching from up the hill.
David had changed little. He was still straight and slender, his yellow
hair still curled over his broad forehead, and his gray eyes were
still clear and bright. His motto, “Keep an even mind under all
circumstances,” still hung above his desk in his study. For nearly six
years, happy years, 'Thusia had been David's wife.
The old rivalry between 'Thusia and Mary seemed forgotten. For one year
old Wiggett, refusing Mary's pleadings, had sat under a Congregational
preacher, but the Congregational Church--being already supplied with
leaders--offered him small opportunity to exert his stubborn and
somewhat surly desire for dictatorship, and he returned to sit under and
glare at David, and resumed his position of most powerful elder.