“Joan, that was cruel.  You should have explained.”

“No, Aunt Dorrie, it was wise.  Of course I’m going to explain to him and send him the money, but I wanted to shut the door on my silly past first.  I shall only let in, hereafter, that part of it that I choose.  When I saw a man looking at me, Aunt Dorrie, where before I had been seeing a doctor, there was nothing to do but scamper.  He hadn’t the least idea what was happening—­he saw only the bag of bones that he had rescued, but I wasn’t going to let him run any risks.  You see, I’ve learned more than some girls.”

And then Joan, mentally, turned her back on the past.  With that power she had for holding to the thing she desired, the thing she wanted to make true, she laughed her merry, carefree laugh—­she recalled only the joyous, amusing incidents and she watched with hungry, loving eyes the effect she was creating.

It was while this was going on that Mary came upon the piazza to announce luncheon.  There were days when no one saw Mary, when her cabin was closed and locked; but after such absences she came to Ridge House and worked with a fervour that flavoured of apology.

She gazed long upon Joan before she spoke.  It was not surprise she showed, but a slow understanding.

“Miss Joan,” she said at last, “seems like you ain’t got the world by the tail like you uster have.”

Joan threw her head back and laughed.

“No, Mary,” she presently replied, “it swung so fast that I fell off—­but I’ll catch hold soon.”

The quiet little luncheon in the quaint dining room did much to restore the long-past relations of Joan with the family.  Uncle Jed came in and chuckled with delight.  The old man lived mostly in the past now, and followed Mary like a poor crumpled shadow.  What held the two together was difficult to understand—­but it was the kinship of the hills, the stolid sense of familiarity.

After the meal was over Joan wandered about through the living rooms for a few moments, touching Nancy’s loom, but speaking seldom of Nancy.

“I want to hear all about it from her,” she explained; and Doris, with Joan’s affairs chiefly in her thought, referred merely to Nancy’s happiness, their perfect sympathy with it; and if Kenneth’s name was mentioned, Joan did not notice it.

At last she went up to her room to rest.

“Quite as if I had never been away, Aunt Doris,” she said, “and you don’t mind if I take Cuff?  The poor little chap has had so many changes that I fear for his nerves!”

Joan went upstairs to the west wing chamber singing a gay little song—­her own voice seemed to hold her to the safe, happy present—­so she sang.

She paused at the door of her room to read the words carved there long ago by Sister Constance: 

    =And the Hills Shall Bring Peace=

It was like someone speaking a welcome.

“Oh! it is all so dear,” Joan murmured, “how could it ever have seemed dull!”