My history of the affair at Glenarm has overrun the

bounds I had set for it, and these, I submit, are not

days for the desk and pen. Marian is turning over the

sheets of manuscript that lie at my left elbow, and demanding

that I drop work for a walk abroad. My

grandfather is pacing the terrace outside, planning, no

doubt, those changes in the grounds that are his constant

delight.

Of some of the persons concerned in this winter's

tale let me say a word more. The prisoner whom Larry

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left behind we discharged, after several days, with all

the honors of war, and (I may add without breach of

confidence) a comfortable indemnity. Larry has made

a reputation by his book on Russia-a searching study

into the conditions of the Czar's empire, and, having

squeezed that lemon, he is now in Tibet. His father

has secured from the British government a promise of

immunity for Larry, so long as that amiable adventurer

keeps away from Ireland. My friend's latest letters to

me contain, I note, no reference to The Sod.

Bates is in California conducting a fruit ranch, and

when he visited us last Christmas he bore all the marks

of a gentleman whom the world uses well. Stoddard's

life has known many changes in these years, but they

must wait for another day, and, perhaps, another historian.

Suffice it to say that it was he who married us

-Marian and me-in the little chapel by the wall, and

that when he comes now and then to visit us, we renew

our impression of him as a man large of body and of

soul. Sister Theresa continues at the head of St. Agatha's,

and she and the other Sisters of her brown-clad

company are delightful neighbors. Pickering's failure

and subsequent disappearance were described sufficiently

in the newspapers and his name is never mentioned at

Glenarm.

As for myself-Marian is tapping the floor restlessly

with her boot and I must hasten-I may say that I am

no idler. It was I who carried on the work of finishing

Glenarm House, and I manage the farms which my

grandfather has lately acquired in this neighborhood.

But better still, from my own point of view, I maintain

in Chicago an office as consulting engineer and I have

already had several important commissions.

Glenarm House is now what my grandfather had

wished to make it, a beautiful and dignified mansion.

He insisted on filling up the tunnel, so that the Door of

Bewilderment is no more. The passage in the wall and

the strong box in the paneling of the chimney-breast

remain, though the latter we use now as a hiding-place

for certain prized bottles of rare whisky which John

Marshall Glenarm ordains shall be taken down only on

Christmas Eves, to drink the health of Olivia Gladys

Armstrong. That young woman, I may add, is now a

belle in her own city, and of the scores of youngsters all

the way from Pittsburg to New Orleans who lay siege

to her heart, my word is, may the best man win!




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