"It's some job," the mason remarked. "I don't feel sure we'd succeed in it much better than Fate."

"You will become a part of Fate," the judge said earnestly, "as we all are! Don't you see?"

"We'd better begin with Cousin Stan first," the mason shouted. "I'd like to be his fate, you bet!"

"What would you do with the Honorable Stanley Clark?" the judge asked.

"Boot him clear out of the State of California—show him up for what he is—a mean little cuss of a grafter; no friend of labor or anything else but his own pocket."

"Good! But it will take money to do that these days, a good deal of money! You will have to pay for publicity and court expenses and all the rest of it."

"Hoorah! I'd like to soak him one with his share of Clark's Field!"

"Providence blesses as well as curses," warned the old judge. "And it's chief work, I take it, is educational—to develop all that is possible from within. Remember that, sir, when you are 'soaking' Cousin Stan."

"The educational can wait until we've done some correctin'!"

They all laughed. And presently they parted. As they stood in the little front room waiting for Adelle's car to fetch her, the judge remarked with a certain solemnity,—

"Now at last I believe the fate of Clark's Field is settled. In that good old legal term, the title to the Field, so long restless and unsettled, at last is 'quieted,' I think for good and all, humanly speaking!"

"I think so," Adelle assented, with the same dreamy look in her gray eyes that had moved the judge to take her hand that morning. "At least I see quite clearly what I must do with my share of it."

"Come and see me again before you go away, as often as you can, both of you!" the judge said as they left. "Remember that I am an old man, and my best amusement is watching Providence working out its ways with us all. And you two are part of Providence:—come and tell me what you find!"

"We will!" they said.

After the door had swung to behind his visitors, the judge stood thoughtfully beside the window watching the cousins depart. As the young mason hopped into the car in response to Adelle's invitation, and clumsily swung the door after him with a bang, the judge smiled tenderly, murmuring to himself,—

"It's all education, and they'll educate each other!"



L

And here we must abandon Adelle Clark and Clark's Field, not that another volume might not be written concerning her further adventures with the old Field. But that would be an altogether different story. She went back to see Judge Orcutt, not only at this time, but many times later, as long as the judge lived. So he was able to watch the idea that had sprung into being, helped by his wise sympathy, grow and bear its slow fruit to his satisfaction. In starting this chance couple upon the quest of their scattered relatives, to play the part of Providence to all the little, unknown California Clarks, and also to restore to Clark's Field its own riches, which for two generations had been unjustly hoarded for the use of one human being, the judge was doubtless doing a dangerous and revolutionary thing, according to the belief of many good people, something certainly ill befitting a retired judge of the probate courts of his staid Commonwealth! Had he not been employed for forty years of his life in expounding and upholding that absurd code of inheritance and property rights that the Anglo-Saxon peoples have preserved from their ancient tribal days in the gloomy forests of the lower Rhine? Nay, worse, was he not guilty of disrespect to the most sacred object of worship that the race has—the holy institution of private property, aiding and abetting an anarchist in his loose views upon this subject? I will not try to defend the judge. He seemed tranquil that first day as he hobbled up his old stairs to his study, as if he felt that he had done a good day's business and was enjoying the approval of a good conscience; also, the satisfaction of insight into human nature, which is one of the rare rewards of becoming old. Nor did he worry for one moment about our heroine Adelle. He thought Adelle one of the safest persons in the universe, because she could derive good from her mistakes, and any one who can get good out of evil is the safest sort of human being to raise in this garden plot of human souls. The judge may have been more doubtful about the stone mason, but in the young man's own phrase he considered him, too, a good bet in the human lottery.

As to what they might do to each other in the course of their mutual education, the judge left that wisely to that other Providence of his fathers, sure that Adelle this time would not take such a long and painful road to wisdom as she had done in marrying Archie. But we must not mistake the judge's last foolish remark,—interpret it, at least in a merely sentimental sense, too literally. Like a poet the judge spoke in symbols of matters that cannot be phrased in any tongue precisely. He did not think of their marrying each other, because they were deeply concerned together, although I am aware that my readers are speculating on this point already. The judge left that to Adelle and Tom Clark and Providence, and we can safely do the same thing. He set them forth on their jaunt after the stray members of the Clark tribe and other deeds with a favorable expectation that they would commit along the road only the necessary minimum of folly, and above all, sure of Adelle's destination. For at twenty-six she had passed through crude desire, through passion and pain and sorrow, and had discovered for herself the last commonplace of human thinking—that the end of life is not the "pursuit of happiness," as our materialistic forefathers put it in the Constitution they made for us, and cannot be "guaranteed" to any mortal. With that bedrock axiom of human wisdom embedded in her steadfast nature, to what heights might not the dumb Adelle, the pale, passive, inarticulate woman creature, ultimately rise?

There were many stations on her road. And first of all her husband, Archie. Adelle began to think again about Archie in the new light she had. She had not thought about him at all since she had dropped him so summarily from her life after the fire at Highcourt. She wrote him finally a considerable letter, in which she made plain the results of her thinking. It was a surprising letter, as Archie felt, not only in length, but in its point of view and its kindly tone. She seemed to see the great wrong she had ignorantly done to him. The youth she had blindly taken to gratify her green passion and to become the father of her only child! She had ruined him, as far as any one human being can ruin another, and now she knew it. She had been the stupid means of providing him with a feast of folly, and then had abandoned him when he behaved badly. So she wrote him gently, as one who at last comprehended that mercy and forgiveness are due all those whom we harm upon our road either consciously or ignorantly, giving them evil to eat. Yet she saw the crude folly of attempting to resume their marriage in any way, and did not for once consider it. They had sinned gravely against each other and must face life anew, separately, recognizing that theirs was an irreparable mistake. So she wrote unpassionately of the legal divorce which must come. And she gave him money, promising him more as he might need it, within reason. Archie straightway put a good part of it into oil wells because every one in California was talking oil, and of course lost it all. Then Adelle sent him money to buy a nut ranch, in one of the interior valleys, and there we may leave Archie growing English walnuts fitfully. At times he felt aggrieved with Adelle, complained that he had been abused as a man who had married a rich woman and then been thrown aside when he considered himself placed for life. But also at times he had a fleeting conception of Adelle's character, realized that she was not now the girl who had married him out of hand after a mad night ride across France. She was bigger and better than he now, and he was not really worthy of her. But these rare moments of insight usually came only when Adelle had answered favorably his pleas for more money.

* * * * *

One memory of her early years came back to Adelle at this time—a picture that had been dark to her then. It was when she first met her little Mexican friend at the fashionable boarding-school. She could not understand the girl's foreign name, and so the little Mexican had written it out in pencil,—"Diane Merelda," and underneath she wrote in tiny letters,—"F. de M."

"What do those mean?" Adelle had demanded, pointing to the mysterious letters.

"Fille de Marie," the little Catholic lisped, and translated,—"Daughter of the Blessed Virgin; you understand?"

Adelle had not understood then, nor had she thought of it all these years. But now the incident came back to her from its deep resting-place in her consciousness, and she understood its full meaning. She, too, was a child of God! albeit she had lived many years and done folly and suffered sorrow before she could recognize it.

And so Clark's Field had taught its last great lesson,—Clark's Field, that fifty acres of lean, level land with its crop of bricks and mortar, its heavy burden of human lives, the sacrificial altar of our economic system and our race prejudices,—Clark's Field! We pass it night and morning of all the days of our lives, but rarely see it—see, that is, more than its bricks and mortar and empty faces. It should be called, in the quaint phrase of the judge's people, "God's Acre!" One might say that the beauty, the supreme fruit of this Clark's Field, which never blossomed into flower and fruit all these years we have been concerned with its fate, was Adelle. Just Adelle! The judge thought that was enough. Adelle would go on, he believed, growing into new wisdom, slowly acquired according to her nature, and also into tranquillity, friendship, love, and motherhood-all the eternal rewards of right living. Would she accomplish this best through that other Clark—the workman—whom she had discovered for herself? The sentimental reader probably has this already settled to his satisfaction.

But I wonder!

THE END



By ARTHUR STANWOOD PIER

THE WOMEN WE MARRY

"Keen and incisive in character study, logical and life-like in plot invention and development, 'The Women We Marry,' is a novel that stands sturdily on its own merits. It is vigorous, frank and emotional in the best sense of that much-abused word, and there is little in it that is not faithfully representative of life." Boston Transcript.

"The author of this realistic novel has not been afraid to endow his people richly with the ordinary faults and foibles of human nature.... Both his men and women are very real, human people." New York Times.

"As a study of types, 'The Women We Marry' is one of the best things that American fiction has recently produced." Springfield Republican.



By WILLA SIBERT CATHER

O PIONEERS!

"A great romantic novel, written with striking brilliancy and power, in which one sees emerge a new country and a new people.... Throughout the story one has the sense of great spaces; of the soil dominating everything, even the human drama that takes place upon it; renewing itself while the generations come and pass away."—McClure's Magazine.

"The book is big in its conception and strikes many great live topics of the day—the feminist movement and the back-to-the-soil doctrines being two of the most conspicuous. There is a spirit of the open spaces about this story—a bigness that suggests that Miss Cather has taken more than her title from Whitman's hymn to progress, 'Pioneers, O Pioneers.'"—San Francisco Chronicle.



By ELIA W. PEATTIE

THE PRECIPICE

"A frank and fearless study of the New Womanhood which we now see all around us ... done upon a broad canvas."—The Bookman.

"No stronger novel pleading the cause of woman has yet been written than 'The Precipice.'"—Los Angeles Times.

"The author knows life and human nature thoroughly, and she has written out of ripened perceptions and a full heart ... a book which men and women alike will be better for reading, of which any true hearted author might be proud."—Chicago Record Herald.

"So absolutely true to life that it is hard to consider it fiction."—Boston Post.



By HENRY SYDNOR HARRISON

V. V.'S EYES

"'V. V.'s Eyes' is a novel of so elevated a spirit, yet of such strong interest, unartificial, and uncritical, that it is obviously a fulfillment of Mr. Harrison's intention to 'create real literature.'"—Baltimore News.

"In our judgment it is one of the strongest and at the same time most delicately wrought American novels of recent years."—The Outlook.

"'V. V.'s Eyes' is an almost perfect example of idealistic realism. It has the soft heart, the clear vision and the boundless faith in humanity that are typical of our American outlook on life."—Chicago Record-Herald.

"A delicate and artistic study of striking power and literary quality which may well remain the high-water mark in American fiction for the year.... Mr. Harrison definitely takes his place as the one among our younger American novelists of whom the most enduring work may be hoped for."—Springfield Republican.



By Mrs. Romilly Fedden

THE SPARE ROOM

"A bride and groom, a villa in Capri, a spare room and seven guests (assorted varieties) are the ingredients which go to make this thoroughly amusing book."—Chicago Evening Post.

"Bubbling over with laughter ... distinctly a book to read and chuckle over."—Yorkshire Observer.

"Mrs. Fedden has succeeded in arranging for her readers a constant fund of natural yet wildly amusing complications."—Springfield Republican.

"A clever bit of comedy that goes with spirit and sparkle, Mrs. Fedden's little story shows her to be a genuine humorist.... She deserves to be welcomed cordially to the ranks of those who can make us laugh."—New York Times.

"Brimful of rich humor."—Grand Rapids Herald.



By Meredith Nicholson

OTHERWISE PHYLLIS

"The most delightful novel-heroine you've met in a long time. You like it all, but you love Phyllis."—Chicago Inter-Ocean.

"A true-blue, genuine American girl of the 20th century."—Boston Globe.

"Phyllis is a fine creature.... 'Otherwise Phyllis' is a 'comfortable, folksy, neighborly tale' which is genuinely and unaffectedly American in its atmosphere and point of view."—Hamilton Wright Mabie, in the Outlook.

"'Phil' Kirkwood—'Otherwise Phyllis'—is a creature to welcome to our hearth, not to our shelf, for she does not belong among the things that are doomed to become musty."—Boston Herald.

"Phyllis is a healthy, hearty, vivacious young woman of prankish disposition and inquiring mind.... About the best example between book covers of the American girl whose general attitude toward mankind is one of friendliness."—Boston Advertiser.



By Grant Richards

VALENTINE

"A far better novel than its predecessor, 'Caviare.'"—London Athenaeum.

"Cheeriness, youth, high spirits and the joy of life—these are the principal ingredients of this novel."—London Telegraph.

"In 'Valentine' the action is laid almost wholly in London, with occasional week ends at Paris.... 'Valentine' is a good story about enjoyably human people, told with the rich personal charm of the accomplished raconteur."—Boston Transcript.

"Its details and all the actions of all connected with its details are worked out with a realistic thoroughness that makes the story seem a piece of recorded history.... Distinctly light reading, clever, engaging, skillfully wrought."—Churchman.



By Sarah Morgan Dawson

A CONFEDERATE GIRL'S DIARY

"A living voice from the past of the Civil War comes to us from the pages of 'A Confederate Girl's Diary.'... It is fascinatingly interesting, a volume of real life.... A very human document, and one remarkably mature and just, to have been written by so young a girl in times so trying."—Chicago Tribune.

"No such intimate diary of the war from a woman's point of view has yet been given to the world, and certainly no diary of such unusual literary merit."—San Francisco Argonaut.

"We can but wonder that this maiden of the sixties could have created and left to posterity such an adequate, convincing and psychologically perfect portrayal of a woman of the South in the era that closed with the surrender at Appomattox.... Not a page of the story could be spared. No one can wonder at the intense courage and bravery of the Southern soldiers after reading with what passionate faith and devotion these fiery-hearted Southern women sent them into battle."—Boston Transcript.



By Mary Johnston

HAGAR

"Hagar will stand out as one of the splendid woman characters of modern fiction—serene and strong, an ideal feminist and a thorough American."—Portland (Me.) Telegram.

"A splendid story ... not the least part of its charm is that delightful atmosphere of Virginia family life with which Miss Johnston's readers are familiar."—Baltimore Evening Sun.

"A powerful plea for woman suffrage in the guise of gripping fiction."—Springfield Republican.

"Feminism has never had a more human exposition. It is a book notable for sane methods as well as a delightful plot."—Literary Digest.

"Hagar is one of the most admirable of Miss Johnston's creations and the novel is a worthy addition to Miss Johnston's works."—Philadelphia Record.



By KATE DOUGLAS WIGGIN

The Story of Waitstill Baxter

"It cannot fail to prove a delight of delights to 'Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm' enthusiasts."—Chicago Inter-Ocean.

"All admirers of Jane Austen will enjoy Waitstill Baxter.... The solution the reader must find out for himself. It is a triumph of ingenuity. The characters are happy in their background of Puritan village life. The drudgery, the flowers, the strictness in morals and the narrowness of outlook all combine to form a harmonious picture."—The London Times.

"Always generously giving of her best, and delightful as that best always is, Mrs. Wiggin has provided us with something even better in 'Waitstill Baxter.'"—Montreal Star.

"In the strength of its sympathy, in the vivid reality of the lives it portrays, this story will be accepted as the very best of all the popular books that Mrs. Wiggin has written for an admiring constituency."—Wilmington Every Evening.

THE END