lived on the homestead; and the consequence was this gathering of
the Monroes under the old roof-tree. Ralph Monroe for once laid
aside the cares of his railroads, and the deceitfulness of his
millions, in Toronto and took the long-promised, long-deferred
trip to the homeland. Malcolm Monroe journeyed from the far
western university of which he was president. Edith came,
flushed with the triumph of her latest and most successful
concert tour. Mrs. Woodburn, who had been Margaret Monroe, came
from the Nova Scotia town where she lived a busy, happy life as
the wife of a rising young lawyer. James, prosperous and hearty,
greeted them warmly at the old homestead whose fertile acres had
well repaid his skillful management.

They were a merry party, casting aside their cares and years, and
harking back to joyous boyhood and girlhood once more. James had
a family of rosy lads and lasses; Margaret brought her two
blue-eyed little girls; Ralph's dark, clever-looking son
accompanied him, and Malcolm brought his, a young man with a
resolute face, in which there was less of boyishness than in his
father's, and the eyes of a keen, perhaps a hard bargainer. The
two cousins were the same age to a day, and it was a family joke
among the Monroes that the stork must have mixed the babies,
since Ralph's son was like Malcolm in face and brain, while
Malcolm's boy was a second edition of his uncle Ralph.

To crown all, Aunt Isabel came, too--a talkative, clever, shrewd
old lady, as young at eighty-five as she had been at thirty,
thinking the Monroe stock the best in the world, and beamingly
proud of her nephews and nieces, who had gone out from this
humble, little farm to destinies of such brilliance and influence