“Eight years ago Jack Blewitt wanted a place.  Nobody would hire him, because his father was in the penitentiary, and some people thought Jack ought to be there, too.  Robert Monroe hired him—­and helped him, and kept him straight, and got him started right—­and Jack Blewitt is a hard-working, respected young man to-day, with every prospect of a useful and honorable life.  There is hardly a man, woman, or child in White Sands who doesn’t owe something to Robert Monroe!”

As Kathleen Bell sat down, Malcolm sprang up and held out his hands.

“Every one of us stand up and sing Auld Lang Syne,” he cried.

Everybody stood up and joined hands, but one did not sing.  Robert Monroe stood erect, with a great radiance on his face and in his eyes.  His reproach had been taken away; he was crowned among his kindred with the beauty and blessing of sacred yesterdays.

When the singing ceased Malcolm’s stern-faced son reached over and shook Robert’s hands.

“Uncle Rob,” he said heartily, “I hope that when I’m sixty I’ll be as successful a man as you.”

“I guess,” said Aunt Isabel, aside to the little school teacher, as she wiped the tears from her keen old eyes, “that there’s a kind of failure that’s the best success.”

VII.  THE RETURN OF HESTER

Just at dusk, that evening, I had gone upstairs and put on my muslin gown.  I had been busy all day attending to the strawberry preserving—­for Mary Sloane could not be trusted with that—­and I was a little tired, and thought it was hardly worth while to change my dress, especially since there was nobody to see or care, since Hester was gone.  Mary Sloane did not count.

But I did it because Hester would have cared if she had been here.  She always liked to see me neat and dainty.  So, although I was tired and sick at heart, I put on my pale blue muslin and dressed my hair.

At first I did my hair up in a way I had always liked; but had seldom worn, because Hester had disapproved of it.  It became me; but I suddenly felt as if it were disloyal to her, so I took the puffs down again and arranged my hair in the plain, old-fashioned way she had liked.  My hair, though it had a good many gray threads in it, was thick and long and brown still; but that did not matter—­nothing mattered since Hester was dead and I had sent Hugh Blair away for the second time.

The Newbridge people all wondered why I had not put on mourning for Hester.  I did not tell them it was because Hester had asked me not to.  Hester had never approved of mourning; she said that if the heart did not mourn crape would not mend matters; and if it did there was no need of the external trappings of woe.  She told me calmly, the night before she died, to go on wearing my pretty dresses just as I had always worn them, and to make no difference in my outward life because of her going.