As nearly as the aunt could calculate, her niece must now be about twenty years old,—a fine, vigorous age! Doubtless, too, the girl was of buxom Western build, for although Thomas had not married until late in life, his wife had been a youthful woman of the mining country. This Lucy was probably a strapping lass, who in exchange for her three meals would turn off a generous day’s work. Viewed from every standpoint the scheme was an inspiration.

Ellen hoped it would not fail. Now that she had made up her mind to carry through the plan, she could not brook the possibility of being thwarted.

Once more she took the letter from its envelope and read it. Yes, it was excellent. Were she to write it all over again she could not improve it. Therefore she affixed the stamp and address and, summoning Tony, the Portuguese lad who slaved for her, she sent him to the village to mail it.

For two weeks she awaited an answer, visiting the post office each day with a greater degree of interest than she had exhibited 15 toward any outside event for a long stretch of years.

Her contact with the world was slight and infrequent. Now and then she was obliged to harness up and drive to the village for provisions; to have the horse shod; or to sell her garden truck; but she never went unless forced to do so. A hermit by nature, she had no friends and wanted none.

Her only neighbors were the Howes, and beyond the impish pleasure she derived from taunting Martin, they had no interest for her. The sisters were timid, inoffensive beings enough; but had they been three times as inoffensive they were nevertheless Howes; moreover, Ellen did not care for docile people. She was a fighter herself and loved a fighter. That was the reason she had always cherished a covert admiration for Martin. His temper appealed to her; so did his fearlessness and his mulish attitude toward the wall. Such qualities she understood. But with these cringing sisters of his who allowed him to tyrannize over them she had nothing in common. Had she not seen them times without number watch him out of sight and then leap to air his blankets, beat his coat, or perform some service they 16 dared not enact in his presence? Bah! Thank Heaven she was afraid of nobody and was independent of her fellow men.

Save for the assistance of the hard-worked Tony whom she paid—paid sparingly she confessed, but nevertheless paid—she attended to her own plowing, planting, and harvesting, and was beholden to nobody. The world was her natural enemy. To outwit it; to beat it at a bargain; to conquer where it sought to oppress her; to keep its whining dogs of pain, poverty, and loneliness ever at bay; to live without obligation to it; and die undaunted at leaving it,—this was her ambition.

The note she had mailed to her niece was the first advance she had made toward any human being within her memory; and this was not the cry of a dependent but rather the first link in a plot to outgeneral circumstances and place the future within her own control. She prided herself that for half a century she had invariably got the better of whosoever and whatsoever she had come in contact with. What was death, then, but an incident, if after it she might still reign and project her will into the universe even from the estranging fastnesses of the grave? 17

Therefore the answer from Lucy was of greater import than was any ordinary letter. It would tell her whether the initial step in her conspiracy to triumph over Destiny was successful. What wonder that her aged fingers trembled as she tore open the envelope of the message and spread the snowy paper feverishly on the table?

After she had finished reading the letter, Ellen sat tapping her foot impatiently upon the floor. She was nettled, angry.

She did not at all relish having this child turn the tables on her charity and make of it a favor. As for the girl’s sentimental nonsense about its not being satisfactory to live alone, what was she talking about? Living alone was the most satisfactory thing in the world. Did it not banish all the friction of opposing wills and make of one a monarch? No, she did not like the letter, did not like it.

If this Lucy were sincere, she showed herself to be of that affectionate, conscientious, emotional type Ellen so cordially detested; besides, she held her head too high. If on the other hand, she were shamming, and were in 19 reality endowed with a measure of the Howe shrewdness, that was another matter.

Her aunt laughed indulgently at the girl’s youthful attempt at subterfuge. She hoped she was humbugging. Worldly wisdom was an admirable trait. Had not the Websters always been famed for their business sagacity? She would far rather find Thomas’s daughter blessed with a head than with a heart.

But the letter proved that the child was still a novice at the wiles of the world, dissemble as she would.

Had she been older and more discerning, she would have realized she had not actually been promised anything, and she would not have been decoyed into journeying hundreds of miles from home to pursue the wraith of an ephemeral fortune.

Within the confines of his own home Martin Howe, as Ellen Webster asserted, was a czar. Born with the genius to rule, he would probably have fought his way to supremacy had struggle been necessary. As it was, however, no effort was demanded of him, for by the common consent of an adoring family, he had been voluntarily elevated to throne and scepter. He was the only boy, the coveted gift long denied parents blessed with three daughters and in despair of ever possessing a son.

What rejoicings heralded his advent! Had half the treasures an eager father and mother prayed Heaven to grant been bestowed upon the child, he would unquestionably have become an abnormality of health, wealth, and wisdom. But Destiny was too farseeing a goddess to allow her neophyte to be spoiled by prosperity. Both his parents died while 21 Martin was still a pupil at the district school, and the lad, instead of going