"Let him come, and stay, too," I added, still feeling vexed; and how
strangely Louis looked as Mr. Benton came in. "Fairy land," he said.
Mother made some reply, but I sat mute as my thought could make me.
The stage came. Our first supper was pleasant both as a reality and as a
type of their future. Hal and Mary were truly married, and through the
ensuing years their lives ran on together merged as one. When we stopped
to think over the years since his boyhood, to remember the comparatively
few advantages he had enjoyed, the ill luck of my father in his early
years, and his tired, discouraged way which followed,--it was hard to
realize the facts as they were. Grandma Northrop often prophesied of
Hal, saying to mother:
"That boy's star will rise. I know his good luck will more than balance
his father's misfortune, and in your old age you will see him handsomely
settled in life."
It seemed as if the impulse of his youth had all tended to bring him
where the light could shine on his art, and from the time he entered Mr.
Hanson's employ his good fortune was before him. There is another
thought runs by the side of this, and that is one induced by the
knowledge of the great power of gold. Mr. Hanson was a man of wealth and
good business relations. Liking Hal for himself, and interested in his
art, it was easy for him to open many doors for the entrance of his
work. Mr. Benton was a help to Hal in his art, and his reward was
immediate almost, for Hal had told me Will's pieces had never been
appreciated as now.
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