They lived, loved, and multiplied; which, after all, is Life.
To Franklin the days and months and years went by unpunctuated, his life settling gradually into the routine of an unhappy calm.

He neglected too much the social side of life, and rather held to his old friends than busied himself with the search for new.

Battersleigh was gone, swiftly and mysteriously gone, though with the promise to return and with the reiteration of his advice and his well wishes.

Curly was gone--gone up the Trail into a far and mysterious country, though he, too, promised to remember Ellisville, and had given hostage for his promise.

His friends of the Halfway House were gone, for though he heard of them and knew them to be prosperous, he felt himself, by reason of Mary Ellen's decision, in propriety practically withdrawn from their personal acquaintance.