time were more wonderful than anything Aladdin’s lamp ever wrought.  He had secured for Theron, through some of his friends in Portland, the superintendency of a land and real estate company, which had its headquarters in Seattle, but ambitiously linked its affairs with the future of all Washington Territory.  In an hour’s time the hack would come to take the Wares and their baggage to the depot, the first stage in their long journey across the continent to their new home.  Brother Soulsby amiably filled the interval with reminiscences of the Oregon of twenty years back, with instructive dissertations upon the soil, climate, and seasons of Puget Sound and the Columbia valley, and, above all, with helpful characterizations of the social life which had begun to take form in this remotest West.  He had nothing but confidence, to all appearances, in the success of his young friend, now embarking on this new career.  He seemed so sanguine about it that the whole atmosphere of the breakfast room lightened up, and the parting meal, surrounded by so many temptations to distraught broodings and silences as it was, became almost jovial in its spirit.

At last, it was time to look for the carriage.  The trunks and hand-bags were ready in the hall, and Sister Soulsby was tying up a package of sandwiches for Alice to keep by her in the train.

Theron, with hat in hand, and overcoat on arm, loitered restlessly into the kitchen, and watched this proceeding for a moment.  Then he sauntered out upon the stoop, and, lifting his head and drawing as long a breath as he could, looked over at the elms.

Perhaps the face was older and graver; it was hard to tell.  The long winter’s illness, with its recurring crises and sustained confinement, had bleached his skin and reduced his figure to gauntness, but there was none the less an air of restored and secure good health about him.  Only in the eyes themselves, as they rested briefly upon the prospect, did a substantial change suggest itself.  They did not dwell fondly upon the picture of the lofty, spreading boughs, with their waves of sap-green leafage stirring against the blue.  They did not soften and glow this time, at the thought of how wholly one felt sure of God’s goodness in these wonderful new mornings of spring.

They looked instead straight through the fairest and most moving spectacle in nature’s processional, and saw afar off, in conjectural vision, a formless sort of place which was Seattle.  They surveyed its impalpable outlines, its undefined dimensions, with a certain cool glitter of hard-and-fast resolve.  There rose before his fancy, out of the chaos of these shapeless imaginings, some faces of men, then more behind them, then a great concourse of uplifted countenances, crowded close together as far as the eye could reach.  They were attentive faces all, rapt, eager, credulous to a degree.  Their eyes were admiringly bent upon a common object of excited interest.  They