Our chronicle is ended, and we cannot detain the reader longer, listening to those honest kindly voices, which have, perhaps, spoken quite as much as he is willing to give ear to. Let us hope, that in consideration of their kindness and simplicity, he may pardon what appeared frivolous—seeing that humanity beat under all, and kindness—like the gentle word of the poet—is always gain.

The history is therefore done, and all ends here upon the bourne of comedy. Redbud, with all her purity and tenderness—Verty, with his forest instincts and simplicity—the lawyer, and poet, and the rest, must go again into silence, from which they came. They are gone away now, and their voices sound no more; their eyes beam no longer; all their merry quips and sighs, their griefs and laughter, die away—the comedy is ended. Do not think harshly of the poor writer, who regrets to part with them—who feels that he must miss their silent company in the long hours of the coming autumn nights. Poor puppets of the imagination! some may say, what's all this mock regret? No, no! not only of the imagination: of the heart as well!

This said, all is said; but, perhaps, a few words of the after fate of
Verty, and the rest, may not be inappropriate.

The two kind hearts which loved each other so—Verty and Redbud—were married in due course of time: and Ralph and Fanny too. Miss Lavinia and the poet of chancery—Mistress O'Calligan and the knight of the shears—Miss Sallianna and the unfortunate Jinks—all these pairs, ere long, were united. Mr. Jinks perfected his revenge upon Miss Sallianna, as he thought, by marrying her—but, we believe, the result of his revenge was misery. Mistress O'Calligan accepted the hand of Mr. O'Brallaghan, upon hearing of this base desertion; and so, the desires of all were accomplished—for weal or woe.

Be sure, ma mere lived, with Verty and Redbud all her days thereafter; and our honest Verty often mounted Cloud, and went away, on bright October mornings, to the hills, and visited the old hunting lodge: and smoothing, thoughtfully, the ancient head of Longears, pondered on that strange, wild dream of the far past, which slowly developed itself under the hand of Him, the Author and Life, indeed, who brought the light!

And one day, standing there beside the old hunting lodge, with Redbud, Verty, as we still would call him, pointed to the skies, and pressing, with his encircling arm, the young form, said, simply:

"How good and merciful He was—to give me all this happiness—and you!"

THE END.

*****

Produced by Dave Maddock, Josephine Paolucci and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.

Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will be renamed.

- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of receipt of the work.

1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further opportunities to fix the problem.

1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS," WITH NO OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.

1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.

The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at 809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official page at https://pglaf.org

The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular state visit https://pglaf.org

While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who approach us with offers to donate.

International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.

Each eBook is in a subdirectory of the same number as the eBook's eBook number, often in several formats including plain vanilla ASCII, compressed (zipped), HTML and others.

Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks replace the old file and take over the old filename and etext number. The replaced older file is renamed. VERSIONS based on separate sources are treated as new eBooks receiving new filenames and etext numbers.

Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:

EBooks posted prior to November 2003, with eBook numbers BELOW #10000, are filed in directories based on their release date. If you want to download any of these eBooks directly, rather than using the regular search system you may utilize the following addresses and just download by the etext year.

/etext06

(Or /etext 05, 04, 03, 02, 01, 00, 99, 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90)

EBooks posted since November 2003, with etext numbers OVER #10000, are filed in a different way. The year of a release date is no longer part of the directory path. The path is based on the etext number (which is identical to the filename). The path to the file is made up of single digits corresponding to all but the last digit in the filename. For example an eBook of filename 10234 would be found at:

/1/0/2/3/10234

or filename 24689 would be found at: /2/4/6/8/24689

An alternative method of locating eBooks: /GUTINDEX.ALL