At last, just as the sun was setting, Mr. Marshall arose, and without a word, passed into the open air. No one watched him to see whither he went, for all knew that before he returned to them he would go down the lane, along the beaten path, to where the moonlight fell upon a little grave.
It was long before he came back, and when he did, and entered the large kitchen, two figures stood by the western window, and he thought the arm of the taller was thrown about the waist of the shorter, while the face of the shorter was very near to that of the taller. Advancing toward them and stroking the dark curls, he said, half playfully, half earnestly:
"I believe that as Mr. Marshall I have not greeted Jessie yet, so I will do it now. Are you to be my daughter, little girl?"
"Yes, she is," answered Walter, while Jessie broke away from them, and was not visible again that night.
But when, at a late hour, Mrs. Bellenger left the happy group still assembled around the cheerful fire, and sought her room, from the depths of the snowy pillows, where Jessie lay nestled, there came a smothered voice, saying, half timidly:
"This is the nicest Thanksgiving I ever had, and I shall remember it forever."
Four years have passed away since that Thanksgiving dinner, and for the deacon, who, then, did not expect to see another, there seem to be many yet in store. Hale, hearty and happy, he sits in his arm-chair, smoking his accustomed pipe; and when the villagers, who come often to see him, tell him how the old farm-house is improved, and how they should scarcely know it, he always answers:
"Yes, Seth has good taste, and Seth is rich. He could buy Deerwood, if he tried. He built those new houses for the poor down there by the river; he built the factory, too, and gives them all employment. Seth is a blessed boy."
Others, too, there were, besides the deacon, who called Seth Marshall blessed, and never since his return had a voice been raised against him.
After becoming somewhat accustomed to his new position as a free and respected man, his first wish was to modernize the farm-house a little more according to his ideas of taste and comfort. Once he thought to build a splendid mansion near by, but to this suggestion the father said: