I have entitled this chapter “Conclusion,” because it seems necessary to have the last chapter of a book named in that way. But the author might as well have named it “Beginning,” for there is no such thing in life as a “conclusion,” unless, indeed (as Randolph, looking over my shoulder, and fresh from the classic shades of Cambridge, suggests), we take the literal meaning of the word, a “shutting together”—of the covers of this book!

No; life is full of beginnings, and stories can never, never, to all eternity, “conclude.” Because the “Pine Cone Stories” can have but just six volumes, of so many pages each, we must let the story go on without us. But it will not conclude, any more than your life or mine forever. With which little “preachment,” as Miss Alcott’s young people somewhere call it, let us take a last look at the friends whose stories are drifting away out of our sight.

More than three years have passed since Tom delivered that lucky shot at old Silver-Tip; since Bessie gazed thoughtfully down into the mighty caÑon in the Yellowstone, and took in her hand the slender ribbon of grass for a token.

It is Christmas time, and we are in an old mansion house in the depths of a deep forest in the Pine Tree State. You recognize the room at once, I hope—for it is Uncle Will’s little secret chamber at the Pines.

It is night, and the North Wind is smiting grandly his “thunder harp of pines,” while the window panes whiten and rattle with the sheets of snow that are flung against them by the storm.

There is a glorious fire in the fireplace, throwing great billows of flame far up the chimney, crackling, snapping and purring, sending a ruddy glow into every corner of the room and over its inmates.

For the chamber is not empty; the fire is not talking to itself, but to a goodly company that gather around it, with all the old-time cheer.

Uncle Will is there, sturdy and broad-shouldered as ever, with hair only a little whiter than when we first met him, standing beside his good horses at the Pineville depot years ago.

Aunt Puss, too, is not far away, and her husband’s occasional “Eunice” is even more full of tenderness than in earlier days, when they met by the lilac bushes.

Close by her side nestles golden-haired Pet, who turns, however, as she talks, to a tall youth with a dark curling mustache, whom she addresses as Randolph. The flush on her cheeks and the brightness in her happy eyes is not alone borrowed from the dancing fire; for Randolph has just stooped down and whispered to his aunt—Pet knew perfectly well, too, what he was saying, sly puss!—that the wedding-day was set for the first of May.

In another corner of the room Tom, now a grave senior at Harvard, is reading by the fire-light a letter postmarked “Portland, Oregon.” I don’t believe Bert Martin wrote it, though there is a great deal in the letter about him; for the handwriting is decidedly feminine. Can it be that Bert employs his sister as an amanuensis?

The young lady in navy blue, next to Tom, must be Kittie, whose engagement to Fred Seacomb “came out” simultaneously with Randolph and Pet’s. She tells me privately that she can not help teasing him, he’s so dignified with his new instructorship in the University of Pennsylvania; but then he’s good-natured and don’t seem to mind it a bit—“‘so long as he has me,’ he says—foolish fellow!”

“Have you heard from Bess lately?” asks Uncle Will.

“Only last week,” replies Tom, throwing a handful of cones on the fire, and then trying to get the pitch off his white hands. “She and Ross were in Geneva, and having a glorious time.”

“I shall be glad when she is back in this country again,” remarks Aunt Puss, stroking Pet’s bright hair. “If all my girls should run away so far, as soon as they were married, I don’t know what I should do!”

Pet laughs and blushes a little, and assures her aunt that “there’s no danger!” For she and Randolph have talked it over, you see, and have resolved on another Alaskan trip, where they can renew their memories of that bright summer among the gulfs and glaciers of the far Northwest.

“Just for the sake of old times” Uncle Will tells a story, while the red blaze crackles around a plentiful supply of cones and curling sheets of “silver rags.” Without, the northern crosses all through the wood are white with snow, and the wind rises until in its continuous voice can be heard a roar as of the kelp-laden surges around the lonely reefs of Appledore.

There is silence in the little chamber as young folk and old gaze dreamily into the heart of the fire, their thoughts full of dear old days, yet looking forward, strong, trustful, hopeful, to the shelter that shall be for them in the heart of every storm that may assail them; to the work and the joy and the gladness of life that is set before them.