George at first did not quite comprehend:  “Julia, are you going to be Bart’s wife?”

“Yes,” with a richer color.

“When?”

“Hush!  That isn’t a question for you to ask.”  And she bent over him with another low sweet “hush,” that he understood.

Soon the Colonel and his sweet young wife came in, and they all came to know that Julia was one of them; and she knew what warm, true hearts had come so suddenly about her with their strong, steady tenderness.

Then, as the sun fell among the western tree tops, Julia said to Mrs. Ridgeley, “Now Arthur must drive me home; his other mother has not seen him; and to-morrow I will bring him to you.  He is to remain with us, and we will come and go between our two homes for, I don’t know how long; until he grows stout and strong, and has run through all the woods, and visited all the dear old places, and grows weary of us, and sighs for Blackstone, and all those horrid books.”

She took her happy place by his side in the carriage, after kissing them all, including Ed, and they drove leisurely away.

As they went, he told her gaily of the lonely walk, in darkness, when he last went over this road.  The sketch brought new tears to the tender eyes at his side.

“Oh, Arthur! if you could have only known! if you had come to me for one moment.”

“Today could never have come,” he interrupted.  “I like it as it is.  How could I ever have had the beautiful revelation of your high and heroic qualities, Julia?  And we could not have met as we did this morning.  The very memory of that meeting equals the hope and blessedness of Heaven.”

Down past the quiet houses they rode; through bits of woods that still fringed parts of the road; down past the old saw mill; up over the hill, where they paused to look over the beautiful pond, full to its high banks; then to the State road, and south over the high hills, overlooking the little cemetery, towards which Bart looked tenderly.

“Not to-night, love,” said Julia; “their beautiful spirits see and love, and go with us.”

So in the twilight, and with a pensive and serene happiness, they passed up through the straggling village, Julia and her lover, to her own home.

It had somehow been made known that Bart would that evening arrive.  His trunk had been received by the stage, at the stage house, and a group of curious persons were on the look out in front of Parker’s, as they drove past.  When Bart lifted his hat, they recognized and greeted him with a hearty cheer; which was repeated when the carriage passed the store.  Bart was deeply touched.

“You see,” said the happy Julia, “that everybody loves you.”

“You see they greet us on your account,” he answered.

A little group was also at her father’s gate, and as Bart sprang out, Julia’s mother took him by both hands.

“So you have come at last, and will be one of us.”