“Our family has always been rich,—I cannot remember when the Huntingtons were not supposed to have everything they wanted. I myself have not let the great estates of my ancestors slip through my fingers as the people about here imagine. Instead,—it may surprise you—I am richer far than any Huntington has ever been before.”

Peggy gave a delighted little gasp.

“Yes, because the values of my holdings have gone right on increasing and I have used practically nothing for myself, you see. People outside think that no man would appear to be poor as I do, with none of the luxuries of life, and really be rich, for the common rule is the other way, isn’t it? Even at the cost of mortgaging house and home most people buy the outward shows of wealth in order to seem to be rich even though they are poor.

“My daughter was the most beautiful girl in the state when she was young. Her mother died when she was eighteen and so just as she began to want parties and entertainments I was obliged to do all the planning and looking after her myself. Lovely as she was, and rich beyond the dreams of neighborhood avarice, I naturally thought she would marry some kingly young fellow with a position equal to her own. But she didn’t—she married—”

He looked for a long time into the fire, and Peggy ventured to break the silence, “but that wasn’t a very democratic way of looking at things, was it? Don’t you believe a rich girl might like a very poor man, and the other way round, too?”

“She married, with my reluctant consent, a young fellow who immediately tried to get me to sell off great portions of my property and turn the money over to him for investment in some crazy oil well he had out west. He tried in every way to get control of this or that piece, using fraudulent means, it seemed to me. Finally he—borrowed a vast sum of money from a man down state—it was easy for anyone so safely connected with the Huntington family to borrow whatever he wanted—and this he sank in the well, which never amounted to anything and gave him no means of paying even the interest on his debt. With the interest greatly overdue, and no prospects, howsoever dim, of getting back his money, the rash investor from down state came to me and demanded that I reimburse him for my son-in-law’s rascality—though perhaps that is too strong a word to use.”

“And you did—didn’t you?” begged Peggy, anxiously.

“Of course,” agreed her friend. “He knew I would, though he never mentioned the transaction to me himself, but left the news for his creditor to break.

“They lived with me here five years and when my little grandson was two years old, I planned how I could do the most for him, arranging his education and travels in my mind so that all the bright future I had hoped for my daughter might be realized in him. But when incidents like the one I just told you of began to happen frequently and any considerable sum of money I gave my daughter went also into the stupid oil proposition that never yielded any profits or, indeed, paid back a cent of the money that it ate, I determined to go on with the thing no longer and talked to my daughter and my son-in-law so plainly that they agreed to go away and not involve me in such transactions again.”

Katherine timidly interrupted, “I suppose they—didn’t write much after they’d gone?” She was still puzzling to account for the complete loneliness the old man had endured for so many years—even the conduct of his disappointing son-in-law did not, to her mind, wholly explain why a man would be content to forego all manner of acquaintance and friendship ever afterward.

The fire crackled loudly and protestingly, as if it, too, shared her thought and would like an explanation. Peggy never stirred nor moved her eyes from the thoughtful and sympathetic contemplation of Mr. Huntington’s face.

“No,” the old man hesitatingly answered Katherine. “No—You see—, well, I am afraid I spoke very harshly to the man and my daughter heard. He made no kind of defense whatever and—even then I—I was ashamed, but I knew right to be on my side and I felt very long-suffering as it was. My daughter caught up my grandson and faced me. I shall never forget the proud expression in her poor, hurt eyes.”

“‘You shall be paid back every penny, father,’ she said, ‘if you have to wait until this baby grows up and earns enough to cancel his father’s debts. It is not likely we could meet so great an obligation by our own unaided efforts—and Jo is not a moneymaker, but my son shall be trained to think of nothing but making money until the whole amount is ready to return to you. We shan’t send you little dribbles,—not one cent until the entire amount is gotten together—oh, I know how much it is, I have kept track. We shall scrimp and save and earn and plan until you are paid. Nor will you ever hear of us again if I can help it until my son stands some day in your doorway with his check in his hand to pay you back.’ And with that they went away—”

“And they haven’t ever paid you back? And that is why you were poor for so long?” questioned Katherine, believing that at last she had the solution.

Mr. Huntington smiled at the absurdity of this.

“They haven’t paid me back, but the sum they owe me scarcely leaves a perceptible hole in my fortune. No, but the year after they left I happened to read the notice in a New York paper of my son-in-law’s death. No address was given, nothing but just the notice and that was all. Knowing my daughter as I did, I was sure that, at whatever cost, she would persevere in her determination to pay me back and would keep to the letter of her declaration even to the point of going out into the world and earning her own living. The thought of that beautiful, carefully brought-up girl, with so harrowing a responsibility on her shoulders was more than I could bear and I employed detective agents in a vain endeavor to find her and her boy. I myself searched everywhere in the east, but, will you believe me—never from the day she left my house to this—have I found one trace of her or been encouraged, in any way to hope that I should ever see her face again. Now do you begin to understand? Now can you think it natural, perhaps, that I should want to live as poorly as possible, and deny myself as I knew that poor girl was doing? Could I continue in luxury when she was in want? Only by making myself suffer under the most rigid economy, with the idea that every penny I could save and add to my fortune I would bequeath to her boy, in case he could ever be found, has made my life possible to endure. I have felt bitterly toward almost everyone—I don’t know why. And I never expected to have in my life again the sunshine that you and the rest of my sixty little friends, have brought to me to-day.”

Peggy drew a long breath. “Well, it’s been a real Thanksgiving, then, hasn’t it? And I’m so glad, Mr. Huntington, I’m so glad you liked the party—and I—I—I’m sorry about—”

“Do you know,” Katherine broke in, “I think it’s all coming out right. I never had such a funny feeling. But someway I seem to be sure that Mr. Huntington will find his grandson right soon—I don’t know why I should feel this way, but I do.”

“Cassandra,” murmured Peggy. “We’re just having the Fall of Troy in Greek class now, Mr. Huntington, and Katherine is carried away by the idea of being a prophetess. It would be nice if we could see the future,” she added wistfully, “but I always feel as if I had more happiness in the present than I could really take care of,—and if I was always looking ahead to more—”

“You,” said Mr. Huntington, “yes, you would feel that way. Most people would say that the gift of prophecy was withheld from us in order that we might not see so much grief and hardship ahead of us that we would lose the incentive to go on.”

But Peggy was so far out of sympathy with that point of view that she laughed.

The early darkness of the winter afternoon began to deepen in the room and blur all the shadows together. The dancing firelight did its best to fight off the dusk, leaping up with spurting little flames and glowing fiercely red at its heart. But the purple and gray twilight deepened steadily into black everywhere except in the one bright corner of the room where the flames still kept guard.

“Well,” said Peggy, sighing, and untangling herself from the comfortable chair in which she had been curled, “time for us to go home, I suppose—oo—oo—out into all that cold after all this warmth! My hundred dollars, Mr. Huntington—I don’t know what I’ll do with it—” she puckered her brow thoughtfully, “I don’t know anyone else to give a party to so—”

“Buy a big fur coat with it, like some of the other girls wore,” advised the old man, “then you’ll never think about going out into the cold as anything but a pleasure.”

“Oh,—a fur coat!” cried Peggy, “why, mine—mine has just the mangiest bit of a fur collar, and I’ve been proud enough of that—wait, just wait till I get a wonderful young caracal!”

With their hands linked closely together in Peggy’s muff the two girls made their way down the walk, and at the street they turned back and waved cheerily to the silhouetted figure that still watched them against the glowing doorway of what had once been Gloomy House.