Doris was not in a depressed mood. She often sat for an hour in the quiet place. She took her tenderest treasures of thought there. She had been thinking that afternoon of David Martin. How wise he was! What a friend! How he understood her! How unworthy she was of the richness that flooded her life!

It was then that Joan came in. She did not go close to Doris—the physical touch was not the first impulse with either of them.

"Aunt Dorrie, I have a letter from Sylvia Reed."

Instantly Doris was stirred as Nancy had been. Mentally she braced. She recalled vividly Sylvia Reed, Joan's particular friend at Miss Phillips's. The girl had genius where Joan had talent. She had inherited enough to take her comfortably through school, had a small income besides, but she would have to work and win her way to the success she promised. Sylvia's ambition was only equalled by her belief in herself and her eagerness to prove it to others. She was a few years older than Joan, and a girl of remarkable character and sweetness.

"She wants me, Aunt Dorrie. She wants me to come to her. She has a studio in New York; not down in that part of the city which Uncle David doesn't like, the place where he says folks show off with the window shades up. Sylvia is in the safe uptown where the real thing is!"

The eagerness in Joan's hurrying voice made Doris smile. The girl was trying to clear all obstacles away before coming to the point. That was her way.

"Why, Aunt Dorrie, Sylvia has two orders for book covers, already, besides twelve hundred a year!"

The letter had been packed with ammunition and Joan was using it recklessly.

"Just listen, Aunt Dorrie."

And Joan spread the letter on her knee; her hands were trembling as she patted it open.

"This is what Sylvia says:

The Studio is perfect—north side full of windows; south side full of fireplace; your room and mine on the east; stars and sunlight on tap from the windows. We are on top of the city and nothing hinders our view. We walk up and none come but those worthy of us—come, Joan, you always said that you would.

Your future will be blasted unless you break away from your rich relatives. Nothing is such a curse as that which prevents you proving yourself; you remember about the poem which dealt with proving your soul?—how you spouted it. I know that you are gifted, child, but the world doesn't. If we fail, you at least can, after you pay proper respects to my remains, go back to that adorable aunt of yours and flop in the lap of luxury—but make the attempt to reach glory first.

I suppose Nan will raise a ladylike dust—but come! Come empty-handed—it's the only honest way. Come prepared to eat your bread by the sweat of your brow—or go hungry.

I bet your aunt will see the squareness of this offer if you put it right. Come!

The light broadened outside—the little chapel was flooded with the golden glow.

Even while her heart sank and grew heavy, Doris was moved with an almost terrible understanding of the girl across the room. She wanted to push her on her way instead of holding her back, and at the same time she was striving to clutch her as she went her way.

Yes, that was it. Joan was already started; nothing could hold her back—but still the battle waged, while Doris smiled tremblingly.

"I know, Aunt Dorrie, I know. It hurts—but—but—oh! listen, dear. This seems my chance; perhaps it isn't—but I can never know until I try. Dearie—I will do just what you say. I will, and I will think you right. I want so much to try and find out what is in me that I—I cannot see clear."

For a moment Doris could not see the girl across the room. The sunlight fell full on her, and hid her, rather than revealed her.

"I'll try to be worthy of your faith in me, darling. Go on." Doris spoke quietly.

They did not come together physically, these two. They felt no need of the affectionate human contact; it was more one soul reaching out to another with courage and honesty.

Doris listened, following closely. People and places became visualized as Joan spoke. Sylvia Reed with her strong, purposeful face and eyes of a young prophet; the new nest of genius where the brave creature, believing in herself, waited for another in whom she trusted and for whom she held a deep-founded affection. Doris felt her way in silence—relinquishing, loving, fearing, but never blinded. She knew the moment's pain of disappointment caused by the realization that with all her love and riches she had not, for the time being, anything to offer this untried soul that could lure it from its vision.

Presently she heard herself speaking as if a third person were in the room:

"If this means anything it means that it must be met in the spirit with which Sylvia is meeting it. She has risked all; is willing to pay the price—are you?"

"Yes, Aunt Dorrie."

"You know, darling, that it would be easier for me to lavish everything on you?"

"Yes, Aunt Dorrie."

"You understand that if I leave you free to meet this chance in its only true way—the hard, struggling way—it is not because I desire to sicken you of it and so regain you for Nancy and me?"

"Oh! yes, Aunt Dorrie, I do understand that."

"I'm sure you do, child, or you would not be here. And so I set you free, little Joan, I wish you luck and success, but if you find the chance is not your chance, my darling, will you come as frankly to me as you have come to-night?"

"Yes—yes, Aunt Dorrie, and you are—well—there is no word for you, but I feel as if you were my mother and I'd just—found you! You'll never seem quite the same, Aunt Dorrie—though that always seemed good enough. Why"—And here Joan slipped to her feet and danced lightly in the sunny room tossing her hair and swaying gracefully—"why, I'm free to fail even if I must—fail or succeed—and you understand and love me and don't begrudge me my freedom—you are setting me free and not even disapproving."

The dance in that sanctuary did not seem incongruous; Doris watched the motion as she might a figment loose in the sunlight. It was as much a prayer of thanks as any ever uttered in the peaceful place.



CHAPTER X

"Hopes and disappointments, and much need of philosophy."

A week later Joan started for New York, a closely packed suitcase in her hand, a closely packed trunk in the baggage car ahead, and some hurting memories to bear her company on the way.

Memories of Nancy's tears.

How Nancy could cry—once the barriers were down!

And worse than Nancy's tears were Doris's smiles.

Joan understood the psychology of smiles—as she remembered, her proud head was lowered and she was surprised to find that she was shedding tears.

"But it's all part of the price of freedom!" At last Joan dried her eyes. "And I'm willing to pay."

So Joan travelled alone up to town, and it was a wet, slippery night when she raised the knocker on Sylvia Reed's green-painted door and let it fall.

The door opened at once and disclosed the battle-ground of young genius. The old room was dim, for Sylvia had been toasting bacon and bread by the open fire and she needed no more light than the coals gave. Sylvia wore a smock and her hair was down her back. She looked about twelve until she fixed her eyes upon you, then she looked old; too old for a girl of twenty-four.

"Joan! Joan!" was all she said as she drew Joan in. Then, after a struggle, "Do you mind if I—sob?"

"No, I'm going to do it myself." And Joan proceeded to do so and remembered Nancy.

"I'm so—happy!" she gulped. "I was never so happy in my life. I feel as if I'd got hatched, broken through the shell!"

"You have," cried Sylvia, unevenly. "We're going to—to conquer everything! Come in your room, Joan, shed as much as you like. I expected you this morning. I have only bacon and eggs—shall we go out to eat?"

"Go out? Heavens, no! And I adore bacon and eggs. Sylvia, I have edged into glory!"

"You have, Joan—edged in, that's about it."

After the meal before the fire they cleared things away, and then they talked far into the night. Sylvia had already laid emphasis upon her small order.

"And really, Joan, that's great," she explained; "many a girl has to wait longer. Some day I'm going to be hung in the best exhibitions in town, but as a starter a magazine is nothing to be sneered at. I'm modelling, too—I have a duck of an idea for a frieze—only I'm not telling anybody about that—it's too ambitious. What are you going to do, Joan?" This sudden question made Joan stare.

"I—I don't know," she replied, frankly, but with no shade of despondency. "I'll take a look around to-morrow and, then pack my little wares in my basket and peddle them, as you have done. If anybody wants a dancer—here I am! Anybody want funny little songs sung?—here's your girl! I seem to have only samples. I can be adaptable. That's my big asset." They both laughed, but Sylvia soon grew serious. Her short service in reality had already sobered her. It was one thing for the gifted young girl of a fashionable school to watch the impression she made by her wits upon people who were paying high for just such exhibitions, and quite another to convince buyers of goods that they were what you believed them to be.

"The public is a tightwad," was what she muttered presently, "unless you're willing to compromise or—prove it to them."

"I—I don't know what you mean," Joan replied. She was groping after the thing that had made Sylvia's eyes grow old.

"Well, all you need to know, Joan, my lamb, is to prove it to them—never compromise!" Sylvia was herself again. Too well she knew the value of starting out with one's shield bright and shining even if one had to come home on it, all rusted with one's life blood.

Things were not yet very tragic for Sylvia, and her shield was in good condition, but she had an imagination and a keen sense of self-protection.

"We're going to be the happiest pair in town," she whispered to Joan later that night as she bent over the tired girl; "and was there ever such a spot to live in? See, I'm going to raise your shade high, for the night is splendid and—the stars! Go to sleep with the stars watching you, old girl, and you're all right."

Joan slept heavily, dreamlessly, and awoke to—more bacon and eggs with hot rolls and coffee added.

"I'm going to float about a bit to-day," she said, and her feet were fairly dancing. "I've only known New York before holding to Aunt Dorrie's hand or my nurse's. Today I'm going to go back alone and then—catch up with myself."

Suddenly she began to sing her old graduation song:

"I'll sail upon the Dog-star I'll sail upon the Dog-star; I'll chase the moon, till it be noon, But I'll make her leave her horning.

"I'll climb the frosty mountain And there I'll coin the weather. I'll tear the rainbow from the sky And tie both ends together."

Sylvia leaned back, clapping and laughing. This was as it should be. Fun, youth, gaiety. She went to her easel in the north room, humming Joan's old ballad, and never did better work in her life than she did that day.

Joan sallied forth equally happy and her past, thank heaven, had been brief enough and rosy enough to make the tying of the ends nothing but a joyous task. She rode downtown on top of a bus. The crisp air stung and rallied her. She longed to sing from the swaying vehicle—she felt as if she were on top of the world and that it was keeping time to the tune she wanted to sing. She looked so lovely that the conductor grinned delightedly as he remarked:

"Snappy weather, miss!" and Joan nodded in friendly fashion and agreed. She walked to the old home, standing with drawn blinds by the little, close-locked park. It looked stately and reserved as one of the family might have done. It smilingly held its tongue.

"I'd like to see the sunken room and the fountain," Joan thought. "I cannot imagine it with the fountain and the birds still. They will never be still for me!"

She was a bit surprised to feel how far she had travelled from the Joan who was part of Nancy and the sunken room. It was quite shocking to find that she was not missing Nancy. She wondered if she were heartless and selfish? But after all, how could one be missed from a life in which she had never, could never, have part? And full well Joan realized that in this big venture of hers the old, except as a stepping-stone, was separated forever.

"If I become famous"—and Joan, tripping along, felt as if fame were as possible for her as the luncheon she was now feeling the need of—"if I become famous then they will understand, but even then my life and theirs will be different."

This point of view made Joan feel important, tragic, but desolate.

"I'm hungry," she thought, seriously, and made her way to a restaurant, where once she had gone with Doris while on a wonderful shopping expedition. The place was little changed; it had passed into other hands, but the menu proudly proclaimed the same enticing dishes.

Joan ordered what once had seemed the food of the gods, but to her now it was as chaff.

Across the table, made dim by her misty eyes, she seemed to see Doris smiling fondly, faithfully, at her. Doris's power over people was largely due to that faith she had in them.

"And I will be all you want me to be, Aunt Dorrie!" Joan promised that while she choked down the food. "I feel as if I were in the bear's house," she mused, whimsically. "I'm half afraid that I'll be pounced upon."

And so she paid her bill and went back, via the bus, to Sylvia. She ran up the long flights of stairs and burst in upon Sylvia with the announcement that "nothing would count if you didn't have someone to come home and tell it to." And then she forgot her glooms while they prepared an evening meal more conservative than bacon and eggs.

"Yes, my beloved," Sylvia returned as she plunged a wicked-looking little knife into the heart of a grapefruit: "And that accounts for half the marriages in life." Sylvia was refraining, just then, from telling of her own engagement. She wanted and needed Joan for the present—her secret would keep.

"You funny old Syl," Joan flung back over her shoulder as she drew the curtain over the closet that screened the housekeeping skeletons from the wonderful studio. "We won't have to resort to marriage, anyway. We've solved the eternal question!"

"Exactly! And now give those chops a twist. Thank the Lord, we both love them crisp."

The experiment in a few days had Joan by the throat. So utterly had she thrown herself into it, so almost unbelievably had Doris Fletcher permitted her to do so, that it took on all the attributes of reality and demanded nothing less than obedience to its laws, or surrender to defeat.

Doris had given Joan, when she came North, a check for five hundred dollars. Upon reaching Sylvia she had, after paying her expenses, that, and fifty dollars in cash left.

It had seemed boundless wealth for the first few days and continued to seem so until the necessity for bringing the check into action faced the girl.

"I must find something to do!" she vowed as she made her way to the bank where she had deposited the check. "No more fooling around."

Sylvia made no suggestions; never appeared to be anything but satisfied with things as they were. The companionship, the feeling of home that Joan had introduced into her life, were deep joys to the girl who, like many women who know not the art of making a home, are soul-sick for the blessings of one.

"I'd work till my last tube ran dry," she thought to herself, standing at the wide north window, "if I could keep her singing and dancing about and—getting meals!"

Joan did not interfere with Sylvia's profession—she gave it new meaning—but Sylvia realized that Joan was interfering with her own. Still, Sylvia was never one to usurp the rights of a Higher Power, and at twenty-four she was intensely, shamefacedly religious and absolutely lacking in desire to shape the ends of others.

"The thing that's meant for her will slap her in the face soon," Sylvia comforted herself. "And she's such a wonder!"

But if Sylvia refrained from nudging Joan on her course, even to the extent of opening her eyes to sign-posts, others were not so obliging. Into Sylvia's studio youth, in its various forms of expression, floated naturally. Sylvia attracted women more than men, but her girl friends brought their male comrades with them and everybody was welcome to anything that Sylvia had. Fortunately most of the young people were honestly striving to earn their living; they were sweetly, proudly unafraid, but when they relaxed and played they made Joan's eyes widen, until she discovered that they often dressed their ideas, as they did themselves, rather startlingly while adhering, privately, to a respectability that they refused to make public.

They were, on the whole, a joyous lot belonging to that new class which causes older and more conservative folk to hold their breath as people do who watch children walking near a precipice and dare not call out for fear of worse danger.

The women attracted and interested Joan immensely. The men amazed her.

"You see," she confided to Sylvia, "the men seem like a new sex—neither men nor women."

Sylvia stood off regarding her work—she smiled happily and replied:

"They are, dear lamb. The girls will all, eventually, put on; fill up"—Sylvia added a dab of clay to a doubtful curve—"but men, when they chip off from the approved design, look like nothing on earth but daubs!"

"Yes," Joan added, "that's what I mean." Then, with a thoughtful puckering of the brows, "the girls will be women, somehow, but what will become of these—this new sex, Syl?"

Sylvia was tense as she eyed her work. She answered vaguely:

"Some of them will crawl up, and do things and justify themselves, the others will——"

"Will what, Syl?"—for Sylvia was moving like a panther upon her prey—her prey being the small figure on the pedestal.

"Do this—or have it done for them!" and at this the offending clay was dashed to atoms.

"Failure!" breathed Sylvia—"mess!"

Then with characteristic quickness she began a new design. Joan watched her and caught a sudden insight. She realized what it was that marked Sylvia for success. Presently she asked musingly:

"Does any one ever marry these—these men, Syl?"

"Heavens, no! They only play with them; don't get confused on that line, lamb."

"Don't worry about me, Syl. I don't even want to play with them. Syl, I do not think I shall ever marry. I'm like Aunt Dorrie, but if I ever should marry it would be something to help one grip life, not something to—to—well, haul along!"

Sylvia turned and eyed Joan.

"My pet lamb," she remarked, "you are all right! Make sure that no one side-tracks you—give them half, but no more. And, Joan, run along now, child, and get dinner."

A few days later Sylvia broke into Joan's revery by the smouldering fire. It was a gray, cold day and Joan's spirits were at low tide.

She had not been successful in any venture as yet, and so vivid was her imagination, so sincere her determination to play fair, that starvation and early death seemed the most likely objects on her mental horizon. She had eliminated Doris and Nancy as life-preservers—they figured only as blessed memories in a past that was not yet regretted but which was fast fading into a black present.

"Joan, my darling, suppose you come to the rescue. My model has gone back on me—let me see you dance! My model had sand bags on her feet yesterday, anyhow, and my beautiful figure looks as if it had the beginnings of paralysis."

Joan sprang up. Instantly she was aglow and trembling with delight.

"Here, take this balloon," ordered Sylvia, "it is still gassy enough to float—it's a bubble, you know."

Through the room Joan floated after the elusive ball. Sylvia watched her with a light breaking over her own face.

"Great, great!" she cried from her corner, "go it, Joan, you're the real thing!"

Joan was not listening. What her eyes saw were the figures in the fountain of the sunken room. She was one of them again—the story was coming true! It was no longer a golden balloon she was touching, fondling, reaching for, tossing—it was sparkling water, and birds seemed singing in the big north studio.

At last it was over. On Sylvia's canvas the figure appeared to have undergone a marvellous change by a few rapid and bewitched strokes. The sand-bag impression had been removed—the figure was alive!

"Syl, dear, you are wonderful!"

Joan came and stood close. "What have you done to it?"

"Put you in it. Or," here Sylvia tossed her palette aside and caught Joan by the shoulders, "you've put yourself in me. I've a line on your opportunity, Joan, it came to me like a flash of inspiration. I hope you are game."

"I'm game, all right," Joan returned, quietly. She was thinking of her next visit to the bank.

"Dress your prettiest, my lamb. Look success from head to foot and then go to the address I'll give you. I have a friend, Elspeth Gordon, who is opening a tea room. She may not think you necessary to her scheme of things, she's Scotch and terribly thrifty, with a dash of nearness, but you tell her that I say you'll be the making of her."

Joan laughed and darted away to array herself in her best.

"What am I supposed to do there?" she asked. Her brightness and gaiety had returned.

"Oh! any one of your accomplishments. Of course it was merely a matter of making things jibe. Elspeth only telephoned about the tea room this morning."

"You mean I am to wait on tables or cook?" asked Joan, somewhat daunted.

"Lord, child, no! Here, wait. On second thought, I'll go with you. I might have known you couldn't put it over. Watch me!"

Sylvia was worth watching as she pulled her tam o' shanter over her head, her face all aglow.

"I've undervalued your 'samples,' as you call them, my lamb," she chatted on. "Of course you must take lessons and be a legitimate something some day—a singer, I fancy, but in the meantime we must utilize what we have."

On the way through the frosty streets Sylvia grew more mystifying.

"It's putting the punch in these days that counts, Joan. You are to be—the punch. Eats are all right in their way, but folks do not live by bread alone; they flourish—or tea rooms do—on punch."

Joan, running along beside Sylvia, accepted the rambling talk without question. Her acquaintance with tea rooms was limited, but she had caught Sylvia's mood.

"Just imagine," Sylvia was a bit breathless; "a cold, dreary afternoon outside—a warm, bright tea room with enchanting tables drawn close to an open fire, and someone—you, my lamb—singing a ballad, when there is a lull—in the offings! Why, Elspeth is as good as made if she has the wit to grab you—and Elspeth is no fool."

Joan began to see the opening ahead.

"Oh!" she drawled—the word lasted a half block and ended in a mocking laugh.

"Could I dance in costume?" she asked, tossing her head, "or tell fortunes as I used to at school? Do you remember, Syl, how I went to the kitchen door, once, and took the maids all in, and then Miss Tibbetts came down to see what was going on, and I read her palm—and——" but here Joan stopped short physically. "What's the matter, Syl?" she said.

"Why, of course!" Sylvia was regarding Joan impartially. "They might object to having you break in on their silly tea-talk, the police might raid the place if you danced—but palm reading! Oh! my dear, you've struck it in the dark. Hurry!"

And hurry they did, arriving at the Bonny Brier Bush a few minutes later in rather a breathless but radiant state.

The proprietress, Elspeth Gordon, was a tall, slender woman, no longer young, but carrying herself with a dignity that amounted almost to majesty. She was gowned in crisp lavender linen with immaculate white collars and cuffs and was standing in the middle of her Big Experiment, as she termed it, when Joan and Sylvia burst in.

"All ready but the opening of the door—legitimately," she said, smiling on Sylvia and bowing cordially to Joan. "Doesn't it look inviting?" She gave a broad glance to the sweet, orderly room: the small tables, glass covered; the rose-chintz covers and draperies; the clear fire on the broad, old-fashioned hearth, and the blossoming rose bushes on the window sills.

"It certainly does," Sylvia replied with enthusiasm.

"I've put everything I own into this venture," Elspeth went on; "if I fail, I'm done for."

For all her years of discretion and her plain common sense, Elspeth Gordon's mouth and tone betrayed the artistic temperament. Upon that Sylvia was banking.

"I have a splendid cook—a Scotch woman. I'm going to specialize on scones, and oat cakes, and such things, but oh! it is the opening of the door and the awful days of waiting until the public finds out!"

"Exactly!" Sylvia nodded and Joan stared. "You'll have to lure the public, Elspeth, there's no doubt about that. Tea rooms are no novelty these days. You'll have to tease it with a bait, and the rest is easy.

"Now, my dear, here's your bait!" With this, Sylvia turned so sharply upon Joan that Elspeth started nervously and regarded her guest as she might have a tempting worm: something possibly necessary, but which she hesitated to touch.

"She can read—palms!"

"Oh! Syl——" Joan panted, but Sylvia scowled her to silence.

"She can read palms," she repeated, holding Elspeth by her firm tone; "a little more reading up, a bit of experience, and she'll work wonders. She doesn't know it, but she's psychic—of course this is going to be fun; not real. Just a lure. We'll have Joan in a long white robe—a girl I know can design it. We'll have a filmy veil over the lower part of her face—mystery, you know. Look at her eyes, Elspeth, aren't they great? Give that 'into-the-future' stare, Joan!"

Joan rose to the fun of it all. She grasped the possibilities, but Elspeth faltered.

"I don't want to be—ridiculous," she said, slowly. "I'm quite serious, and my food is going to be above question."

"Of course! And if you think Joan will make you ridiculous, you've got another guess coming, Elspeth. Now, when do you open?"

"I have planned to open day after to-morrow." Elspeth spoke hesitatingly, keeping her cool, businesslike glance on Joan.

"All right," Sylvia was tapping her fingers restlessly; "that's Thursday. I'll get a girl I know to work on the costume to-night; we'll buy books on palmistry on our way home. We'll give you just four days to lure your public with scones, and then if you don't call Joan up, she'll start a tea room herself across the way."

This made them all laugh, but there was an earnestness in their eyes.

And on Sunday night Elspeth spoke over the telephone.

"Could you come to-morrow at two, Miss Thornton?"

Joan, sitting close to the telephone, winked at Sylvia. They had all been sitting up nights working, reading, and praying for that question.

"I think so," was the reply in quite an unmoved and businesslike tone.

"And remember, Joan," Sylvia cautioned later, "this is but a means to fit you for a profession!"

"I'll remember," Joan twinkled, "in the meantime, I am going to enjoy myself."



CHAPTER XI

"Let us live happily, free from care among the busy."

There was one of Sylvia's friends who, from the first, caught and held Joan's imagination. That was Patricia Leigh.

Patricia rarely got further than the imagination—after that she was idealized or suspected according to the person dealing with her.

Joan idealized Patricia—"Pat," she was always called.

The girl was fair and delicately frail, but never ill. She wrote verse, when moved to do so, and did it excellently, and she never thought of it as poetry.

When she was not moved to verse—and she had a good market for it—she designed the most astonishing garments for her friends. She could, at any time, have secured a fine position in this line and was frequently turning away offers. When the designing palled upon Pat she fell back upon her personal charm and enjoyed herself!

Patricia had, outwardly, a blood-curdling philosophy which she frankly avowed she believed in, absolutely, though Sylvia warned Joan that it was "bunk!"

What really was the case was this: Patricia was an adept at playing with fire. Lightly she tossed the flame from hand to hand; gaily she laughed, but at the critical moment Patricia ran!

She revelled in portraying the fire danger, but she covered her retreats by masterful silence.

"My code is this," she would proclaim: "In passing, snatch! You can discard at leisure."

There was no doubt but that Patricia did more than her share of snatching. When she played, she played wildly, but she was a coward when pay time came.

But who was there to show Patricia in her true light? Her good qualities, and they were many, pleaded for her. She was too little and sweet to be held to brutal exactions, and she was such a gay, blithesome creature, at her maddest, that when she ran one felt more like commending her speed than hurling epithets of scorn at her.

"If she wasn't a thousand times better than she makes herself out to be," Sylvia confided to Joan, "I'd never let her into my studio; but Pat is golden at heart, and she ought to be spanked for acting as she does."

"Hasn't she any family?" asked Joan. "No one whom she may—hurt?"

"That's it, my lamb, she hasn't. Mother died when she was four years old; father, an actor, but devoted to her, and insisted upon trotting her around with him. She was confided to the care of cheap boarding-house women; she ran away from school once and travelled miles alone to get to her father, and when he died—Pat was eighteen then—she began her career, as she calls it. Snatch and skip!"

"Poor, dear, little Pat!" said Joan, and her eyes filled.

"There, now!" Sylvia exclaimed, "she's caught your imagination."

That was true, and by the magic Joan began to see life as Patricia said she saw it: a place of detached opportunities and no obligations.

"I believe," Patricia would say, looking her divinest, "that in developing ourselves we most serve others. We relieve others of our responsibilities; we express ourselves and have no gnawing ambitions to sour us. Self-sacrifice is folly—it makes others mean and selfish, others who may not hold a candle to us for usefulness. Now"—and here Patricia, smoking her cigarette, would look impishly at Sylvia, quite forgetting Joan—"take, for instance, Teddy Burke!"

"Pat!" Sylvia was in arms, "I will not hear of your actions with Mr. Burke. They're disgraceful. You should be ashamed of them."

"On the other hand," Patricia always looked like a young saint, rather a wild one, to be sure, when she spoke of Burke, "I'm proud of my defiance of stupid limitations and fogyish ideals. Here is a man, a corker, Joan, with a wife who, acting upon tribal instinct, never dreams that she may be set aside. She travels the world over, foot loose, but with her little paw dug deep in her husband's purse. Here are two ducks of kiddies living with governesses and nurses over on a Jersey estate and pining for the higher female touch. Here am I with a batch of verses going quite innocently into Mr. Burke's office—he's an editor, you know—and he buys my stuff and howls for more. I grow white and thin providing more, and in weak moments show my beautiful inner soul to him. He, being a gentleman and an understanding one, asks me out to Jersey, and those children just cram into the hungry corners of my life. They play with me; they—they"—here a subtle touch of truth struck through Patricia's ironic tones—"they teach me to play. Haven't I a right to snatch—what was snatched from me?"

Sylvia cried out: "Rot!" But Joan made no reply.

Often would Sylvia, deeply serious, urge Patricia to turn her talents to designing.

"Verses only take you near danger, Pat, dear," she would say; "and look at the things you can make for people! Why, dear, you bring out all their good points."

"You would have me stick my precious little soul full of needles and pins? Oh! you black-hearted creature. Not on your life, Syl! Designing is my job—it gets enough for me to fly on—but I mean to fly! And as I fly, I pause to sip and feed, but fly I must."

For Joan, Patricia felt a strange attraction. The child that was so persistent in Joan appealed to Patricia while it irritated her.

"She'll get hurt if she doesn't grow up!" the girl thought, and began at once rather crude forcing measures.

"A professional woman," she imparted to Joan, "is a different breed from the household pet—you must learn to scrimmage for yourself and take what helps your profession. You cannot stop and nurse the you of you. One's Art is the thing. Now love helps—love the whole world, Joan, it keeps you young. Play with it, but don't make the mistake of letting it take you in. The thing that threatens Sylvia is her—Plain John!"

Joan and Patricia laughed now. Sylvia's love affair was tenderly old-fashioned. Her man was on the Pacific Coast, making ready for her; she was going to keep right on with her work—her John had planned her studio before he had the house!

"'Love and fly!' is my motto," Patricia rambled on; "fly while the flying is good. Get your wings clipped, and where are you? Sylvia will have children and they will mess up her studio and her career—and look at her promise!" It was Patricia that had forced Sylvia's engagement into the open.

In some vague way Patricia felt that she was educating Joan, not weakening her foundations; but gradually Joan succumbed to the philosophy of snatch-and-fly, and the Brier Bush gave ample opportunity for her to practise it.

From the first she was a success. In her loose, flowing robe of white—Patricia had wrought that with inspiration—she was a witching figure. The filmy veil over the lower part of her face did but emphasize the beauty and size of her golden eyes. The lovely bronze hair was coiled gracefully around the little head, and after a week or so the gravity with which she read palms gave the play a real touch of interest.

People dropped in, sipped tea, and paid well to play with the pretty disguised young creature who was "guessing so cleverly." They departed and sent, or brought, others. The Brier Bush became popular and successful; Elspeth Gordon secured for it a most respectable standing.

"Why, Miss Gordon is the granddaughter of a bishop!" it was whispered, "and take my word for it that little priestess there with her is either a professional, finding the game lucrative, or a society girl out on a lark behind a screen."

Most people believed the latter conjecture was true and then the Brier Bush became fashionable.

Joan reaped what seemed to her a harvest, for Elspeth was as just as she was canny.

"After a year," Joan promised Sylvia, "I will begin to study music seriously. Why, I have decided to specialize, Syl—English and Scotch ballads"; and then off she rippled on her "Dog-star"—the song was a favourite in the studio; so was the Bubble Dance.

* * * * *

And about this time Joan's letters to Ridge House made the hearts there lighter.

"A job!" Nancy repeated, reading the announcement of Joan's success.

"I thought only workingmen had jobs. And in a restaurant, too! Aunt Dorrie, I don't think you ought to let Joan do such things."

"Joan is earning her living," Doris said, calmly, though her heart beat quicker. "These fad things are often successes, financially, and I can trust Joan perfectly."

Christmas was a disappointment.

"I cannot leave this year, Aunt Dorrie," Joan wrote; "this is our busy time. Next year I will be free and studying music."

Doctor Martin was to have been back from the West, but was detained, so Nancy and Doris again helped Father Noble with his hill people, and Mary came over to Ridge House and decorated the rooms to surprise them when they came back from the longest trip of all.

Doris had discarded, largely, her couch. With her inward anxiety about Joan to be controlled, she was more at ease in action and it was good for her.

Nancy's devotion was taken for granted, as was her happiness. What more could Nancy want?

It was Mary who resented this.

"'Tain't fair!" she muttered as she went about her self-imposed tasks, "'tain't fair." And scowlingly Mary still bided her time.

Early in the new year David Martin returned from the West bearing about him the impression of battle crowned by victory. He was jovial and boyishly delighted with Doris's improvement.

"I haven't long to stay," he confided to her, "but I had to see how things were going here before I settled down in New York. Nancy looks fine! She's happy, too." This to Nancy, who was fondling the pups by the fire.

"Well, then, how about Joan?"

Doris, her hands folded in her lap, did not reply.

At this Martin took to striding up and down the long, sunny room. The thought of Nancy rested him; Joan always irritated him.

"When is she coming back?" he asked suddenly.

"She's got——" Nancy hesitated at the word; "she's got a job. She won't come home until she's lost that."

Martin turned on Doris a perplexed and awakened face.

"What's this?" His voice had the ring of the primitive male.

"Well, you know Joan is with Sylvia Reed, David. You remember that girl who painted so beautifully at Dondale? Sylvia has a studio, now, and is regularly launched. She's doing extremely good work. Nan, show Doctor Martin that magazine cover that Sylvia did."

David took the magazine indifferently from the obedient Nancy and dropped it at once.

"Who's looking after them?" he inquired, leaping, in his deadly rigid way, over much debatable ground.

"They're looking after themselves, David." Doris metaphorically got into position for a severe bout.

"You don't mean," Martin came close and glowered over Doris, "you cannot possibly mean that Joan is going in for that loose, smudgy stunt that some girls are doing down in that part of town known as Every Man's Land?"

Nancy ran to the window and bent over her loom. She was always frightened when David Martin looked as if he were going to perform an operation.

"Certainly not," Doris replied; "the girls have a place uptown in a perfectly respectable quarter. Joan shares the expense. This is very real and fine, David. And you are not going to blame me for permitting Joan to do this—it was the only thing to be done. The girl has a right to her life and the use of her talents; this was an opening that we could not ignore. Sylvia Reed is older than Joan."

"How much?" David's voice was like steel.

"Four years." In spite of her anxiety, Doris had to laugh.

"Is this a joke, Doris?" Martin was confused.

"Why, no, David, it isn't."

"Were you mad, Doris? Why, don't you know that many girls are simply crooked while they call themselves emancipated? I am amazed at you. How did you dare! Have you thought what an injustice you've done the girl? Keeping her in cotton wool, feeding her on specialized food, and then letting her loose among—among garbage pails?"

Nancy fled from the room. The operation was on!

Doris got up and linked her arm in David's—they paced the floor slowly, getting control of themselves as they went. Presently Doris spoke:

"You see, dear, I have always held certain beliefs—I have always been willing to test them—and pay."

"But dare you let Joan pay?" Martin was calm now.

"Not for mine, but for her own—yes. Aren't you going to let this boy of yours try his own flight, David?"

"That's different."

"It won't be always, David, dear—someone must make the break—our dear young things in the big cities are breasting the waves, David. I glory in them, and even while I tremble, I urge them on. You should have seen Joan when she came to me with her great desire burning and throbbing. Why, it would have been murder to kill in her what I saw in her eyes then. It was her Right demanding to be free."

"It's the maddest thing I ever heard of!" Martin broke in. "I wonder if you have counted the cost, Doris?"

"Yes, David, through many long days and wakeful nights. I have shuddered and felt that it was different for Joan; that she should have been kept in—in bondage. It would have been bondage for her. But, David, the only thing I dared not do was to keep freedom from the child."

"And suppose"—Martin's face grew grimmer—"suppose she goes under?"

"She will come to me—she promised. I am prepared to go as far as I can with my girls on their way; not mine. That was part of my bargain with God when I took them."

"You're a very strange and risky woman, Doris."

"And you are going to be fair, David, dear. Now tell me about your boy."

Instantly Martin was taken off guard. He smiled broadly and patted Doris's hand, which lay upon his arm.

"Bud's coming out on top!" he said—Clive Cameron was always Bud to Martin. "I've kept closemouthed about the boy," he went on, forgetting Joan; "he's meant a lot to me, but I've always recognized the possibility of failure with him and felt the least I could do, if things came to the worst, was to leave an exit for him to slip out of, unnoticed. He's always kept us guessing—my sister and I. He never knew his father. From a silent, observing child he ran into a stormy, vivid youth that often threatened disaster if not positive annihilation—but he's of the breed that dashes to the edge, grinds his teeth, plants his feet, and looks over!—then, breathing hard, draws back. After a while I got to banking on that balking trick of his. Once I got used to the fact that the boy meant to know life—not abuse it—I knew a few easy years while he plodded or, at times, plunged, through college.

"He couldn't settle, though, on a job, and that upset us at last. He ran the gamut of professions in his mind—but none of them appealed to him. When he was nineteen he suddenly took an interest in his father—we'd never told him much about him. Cameron wasn't a bad chap—he simply hadn't character enough to be bad—he was a floater! When Bud got that into his system, it sobered him more than if he'd been told his father was a scamp. A year later the boy came to me and said: 'Uncle David, if you don't think I'd queer your profession—I'm going to make a try at it.'"

Martin's face beamed and then he went on:

"That was a big day for me, Doris, but even when the chap went into it, I kept quiet. I feared he might balk. But he hasn't! He's big stuff—that boy of mine. He confided everything to me this time. Certain phases of the work almost drove him off—dissecting and, well, the grimmer aspects! Often, he told me, he had to put up a stiff fight with himself before he could enter a dissecting room—but that does one of two things, Doris: makes a doctor human or a brute. It has humanized Bud. He'll be through now, in a year or so, and I'm going to throw him neck and crop into my practice. I'll stand by for awhile, but I have great faith in my boy!"

Doris looked up at the grave, happy face above her own.

For a moment a sensation she had never experienced before touched her—it was like jealousy!

"How he would have adored a son of his own," she thought, "and what a father he would have been!"

She faltered before speaking, then she said quietly:

"If—if I have deprived you of much, David, at least I have not killed the soul of you."

"I'm learning as I go along, my dear," Martin replied.

"We're not all developed in the same way."

"And, David," Doris trembled as she spoke, "as you feel for your boy, so I feel for my Joan. You must trust me."

"That is different," Martin stiffened.

"It is the same."



CHAPTER XII

"In all directions gulfs and yawning abysses."

That was what David Martin felt was encompassing Joan. He wanted to take a hand in her affairs, but before he left Ridge House Doris made him promise that unless she changed her mind, he would not even call upon Joan.

"If she knows that you have your eye on her, David, much of what I hope for will be threatened. You have quite a dreadful eye, dear man, and Joan is sensitive. She may look you up—I will write to her about you. If she doesn't, she does not want you to—well, Davey, meddle! And she has a perfect right to her freedom. She is self-supporting now!"

Doris could but show her pride in Joan's cleverness.

"Very well, Doris. I wash my hands of the matter, but I think it sheer madness!"

With that Martin returned to town and waited, hopefully, for a summons from Joan. It did not come!

He did go so far, one evening, as to walk on the block where the studio was, but he got no satisfaction from that except the proof of its respectability.

"I cannot look back just now!" Joan had thought when considering Martin, "and Uncle David would tell me things about Aunt Dorrie and Nancy that would rumple all my calm, and I dare not risk it."

In this she was wise—for there were times when, the novelty and freedom of self-support worn off, the temptation to return to the waiting flesh-pots was very great. At such moments of weakness Patricia rallied her.

"Don't be one of the women who are ready to sell their birthrights for a meal ticket," Patricia urged, looking her daintiest and saintliest.

"But what is one's birthright?" Joan asked.

"The self-expression of—yourself," Patricia smiled serenely.

This always reinstated Joan in her old resolve.

"To come to town and cut capers at the Brier Bush," she confided to Sylvia, once Patricia was off the scene, "is poor proof of anything. Syl, I'm going to get to work seriously soon with my music."

"We'll get a piano," practical Sylvia suggested; "there is no need to grow rusty while you're making money."

And so they secured the piano, and the studio had another charm.

The Brier Bush, in the meantime, was waxing great in popularity and financial success. Elspeth Gordon from her position of assurance gave it a unique touch. No one could take liberties with her tea room. Presently delicious luncheons were added to the scheme, and, while Joan's part was regarded with amused complacency, the excellent food and service commanded respect.

At first women came largely to the pretty, attractive rooms; then, occasionally, men, rather timidly, presented themselves, but finding themselves taken for granted and the food above reproach, they appeared in numbers and enjoyed it.

And then one rather gloomy, early spring day Mrs. Tweksbury came upon the scene.

Joan knew her at once, although the old face was more wrinkled and delicate.

Of course Mrs. Tweksbury had not the slightest inkling concerning Joan's movements, and she looked upon the veiled young creature moving about the tea room with a cool, calm stare of amused disapproval.

"Quite a faddish thing you're making of your venture," she said to Elspeth Gordon, for of course with a bishop for a grandfather Miss Gordon was taken for granted. Elspeth smiled her most dignified smile and replied graciously:

"Just a bit of amusement, Mrs. Tweksbury. It helps digestion and, incidentally, helps business."

"But the—the young woman, Miss Gordon—is she a professional?"

"Have you tested her, Mrs. Tweksbury?"

"Oh! no, my dear Miss Gordon." Mrs. Tweksbury had beautiful old hands and she turned the palms up while she considered them.

"Suppose you judge for yourself, Mrs. Tweksbury." Elspeth was charmingly easy in her manner.

"Who is she?" bluntly asked the old lady.

"Ah!" And here Elspeth recoiled. "My palmist and my best recipes are sacred to me, Mrs. Tweksbury. But may I call my little seer to you?"

Mrs. Tweksbury consented, and when Joan looked at the pink, soft palm a spirit of mischief possessed her.

Skirting as near as she dared to the facts in her possession, she gently, but startlingly, took the owner of the hand at a disadvantage.

At first Mrs. Tweksbury was confirmed in her idea that the girl before her was a society girl—her general knowledge could be explained by that, but suddenly Joan became more daring—she vividly recalled much that she had heard Doris say in defence of the old woman whom Nancy and she feared and often ridiculed.

It took but a twist to change a private incident into a blurred but amazing suggestion.

Mrs. Tweksbury was frankly and angrily impressed.

When passing from the room Miss Gordon spoke to her:

"Do you believe in my Veiled Lady?" she asked.

"Certainly not, Miss Gordon, but I'm—afraid of her! You had better guard her somewhat—or she'll be taken seriously."

"We'll never see her again!" prophesied Joan, chuckling over her victory with the old lady; "I've evened up for Nan and me!" she thought, and then the incident passed from her mind.

But not so easily did the matter go from the confused thoughts of Mrs. Tweksbury.

"I dare say," she finally concluded, "that if one could tear the veil from the face of that impudent little minx one would discover the smartest of the objectionable Smart Set. The girl should be curbed—how dare she!"—here Emily Tweksbury flushed a rich mahogany red as she recalled some of the cleverly concealed details of, what seemed to her, the most private affairs.

"Outrageous!" she snorted, and vowed that she deserved all that she had received for supporting the new-fangled nonsense that was spreading like a new social evil in the heart of all she held sacred.

Patricia Leigh had not been so interested in years as she was in Joan's affairs at the Brier Bush. They smacked of high adventure and thrilled the girl.

To Sylvia they were rather grovelling means to a legitimate end. She scowled at Joan's vivid description of her experiences and warned her to trust not too fully to her veil.

"But it's a splendid lark!" Patricia burst in, defensively; "it's Art spelled in capitals. Joan, take my advice and get points about the swells and scare them stiff!"

"Pat, you should be ashamed!" Sylvia scowled darkly.

"Yes?" purred Patricia. Then: "I see the finish of Plain John's romance, my sinister Syl, if you don't limber up your spine. Genius, love, and unbending virtue never pull together."

And then—it was when March was dreariest and drippiest—Kenneth Raymond strode—that was the only word to describe his long-legged advance—into the Brier Bush for luncheon with Mrs. Tweksbury.

He had listened to variations of Mrs. Tweksbury's first visit to the tea room with varying degrees of impatience.

He hated tea rooms; he had little interest in young women, and particularly disapproved of the type bordering on license; but he had consented to go in order to lay the old lady's growing nervousness concerning the details of her first visit.

"My dear," Mrs. Tweksbury had said to Raymond, "the more I think of it the more I am puzzled."

"Exactly," Raymond replied; "the more you think of it the more puzzles you introduce. Undoubtedly the young woman is a girl playing outside her legitimate preserves. She's taking an unfair advantage. They always do. Presuming on sex and social position. Unless the girl is an outlaw, she'll confine her antics to the safe outer edge."

In this mood Raymond strode into the Brier Bush with Mrs. Tweksbury at his heels. They took a table near the fireplace and, rather arrogantly, Raymond looked about.

"No one was going to take him in!" was what his stern young eyes and dominant chin proclaimed.

He was of that type of man that gives the impression of being handsome without any of the damaging features so often included. He was handsome because he was strong, well set up, and completely unconscious of himself.

He was always willing to pay the right price for what he wanted, but he meant to get good value! He was lavish with what was his own, as Mrs. Tweksbury almost tearfully asserted, but about that he never spoke and always frowned down any reference to it.

He expected the usual thing at the Brier Bush, and was just enough to show some appreciation when he did not find it.

The rooms were unique and charming. Elspeth Gordon was impressive as she walked about among her guests. She might permit them to be amused; help, indeed, to give them a cheery hour in the busy day, but not for a moment would she admit what could be questionable in her scheme.

That being proved, Raymond critically attacked the bill of fare. Its promise was like the atmosphere of the place, honest and wholesome.

No man is proof against such dishes as were presently set before him. Raymond was so engrossed by their merit and so surprised by it that he forgot the main thing that had brought him to the Brier Bush until he felt Mrs. Tweksbury's foot firmly and insistently pressing his. He looked up.

Joan was passing their table and very slightly she inclined her head toward it.

Her eyes were what startled Raymond. If eyes in themselves have no expression, then the soul, looking through, has full play.

All Joan's youth and ignorance and unconscious wisdom shone forth. Mrs. Tweksbury amused her, but the man at the table disturbed her. She misinterpreted the calm glance he fixed upon her. It was a disapproving glance, to be sure, and Joan shrank from that, but she felt that he was cruelly misjudging her and was so sure of himself that he dared to do it—without even knowing!

This she resented with a flash of her wonderful eyes.

What Raymond really meant was—doubt. Not of her, but himself.

"Saucy witch!" whispered Mrs. Tweksbury; "Ken, test her, for my sake!" Again the foot under the table steered Raymond's thoughts.

He found himself smiling up at Joan and, rising, offered her the third chair at his table.

She sat down quite indifferently, but graciously, and spread out her pretty hands. Joan's hands were lovely—Raymond was susceptible to hands. To him they indicated fineness or the reverse. Art could do much for hands, but Nature could do more.

Quite as graciously and simply as Joan had done Raymond spread his own hands forth with the remark: "At your mercy, Sibyl."

Now Joan, through much study of books and with a certain intuition that stood her in good stead, had cleverly conquered her tricks. For what they were worth, she offered them charmingly, seriously, and with impressiveness.

Then, too, from much guessing, with astonishing results, she had grown to half believe in what she was doing. Patricia aided her in this. Patricia had a superstitious streak and took to fads as she took to her verse—on her flying trips.

"You are a business man," Joan began, fixing her splendid eyes on the frankly upturned hands—she was comparing them with the hands of the Third Sex, those studio-haunting men whose hands, like their linen and morals, were too often off-colour.

"An honest business man!" Joan thought that, but did not voice it.

"You will succeed—if——" This she spoke aloud and then looked up. She was ready now to punish her prey for that look of doubt in his eyes.

"If—what?" Raymond was conscious of the "feel" of the hand which held his—Joan's other hand was lying open beside his on the table.

"If——" and now Joan traced delicately a line in his palm—a faint, wavering line running hither and thither among the more strongly marked ones; "if you strengthen this line," she said. "You are too sure of—of your inherited traits. This line indicates individuality; it will rule in the end, but you are making personality your god now. That is unwise. As a well-trained servant it is wonderful, but as a master it will run you off your best course."

How Patricia would have gloried could she have heard her words mouthed by Joan!

Raymond stared. He felt Mrs. Tweksbury's foot on his and, mentally, clung to it as a familiar and safe landmark.

"Just what difference lies between individuality and personality?" he asked so seriously that Joan's mouth twitched under her life-saving veil. She brought Patricia's philosophy into more active action.

"The difference is the meaning of life. One comes into this consciousness with his individuality—or soul, or whatever one cares to call it—intact. It accepts or repudiates what the personality—that is intellect—learns through the five senses. If it is truth, then it becomes part of the individuality—if it is untruth, it is discarded. Individuality is never in doubt—it knows. It is not bound by foolish laws evolved from the five-sensed personality; it will, in the end, have its way. You will have to listen more to your individuality; be controlled less by your personality. The latter is too fully developed"—at this broad slash Raymond coloured in spite of himself—"the former has been pitifully ignored."

The pause that followed was made normal only by the pressure on Raymond's foot.

Presently he said, boldly:

"You have the same line in your own hand, Sibyl!"

Joan started and looked down. She had not considered a home thrust possible. Instinctively her long, slim fingers clutched the secret of her palm.

"I am not reading my own lines," she said, quietly; "I am learning from them, however!"

Then she rose with dignity and passed to another table where a broad, flat, commonplace hand lay ready.

"Well?" Mrs. Tweksbury pounced into the arena like a released gladiator. "What do you make of it, Ken?"

Raymond laughed. He saw that Mrs. Tweksbury was more impressed than she cared to acknowledge.

"I don't know what she told you, Aunt Emily," he said, taking up the check beside his plate, "but it was rather cleverly concealed rot, as far as I am concerned. Drivel; faddy drivel, but the girl's a lady, or whatever that word stands for. I half believe the child takes herself seriously—she has wonderful eyes. She should wear blinders—it isn't fair to leave them outside the veil. Comical little beggar!"

"But, Ken," Emily Tweksbury followed her companion from the room, "you are like that—you really are! You just take life by the throat and you are sure of yourself in a way that frightens me."

"Oh, come, Aunt Emily, that girl has caught you by her nonsense. See here, let us do a bit of sleuthing! I bet the sibyl often is at dinners where we go—and I'm not so sure but what I would know those hands of hers anywhere—they were not ordinary hands. Two can play at her little game."

This seemed to offer some inducement to Mrs. Tweksbury and she brightened.

"Her walk, too, Ken. Did you notice that?"

"Yes—I did, by Jove! Longer strides than most girls take and a swing from the hips like a graceful dance motion. Yes, that walk should be a dead give-away."

"And her eyes, Ken, she has eyes!"

"Yes," rather musingly, "she has eyes!"

"Ken, we mustn't give further countenance to this silly, faddy place."

This with conviction.

"Why should we, Aunt Emily? I only went at your request, you know."

"Of course. The girl got on my nerves." Mrs. Tweksbury could smile now.

"Well, I'm going to get on hers!" Raymond set his jaw.

Two days later Kenneth Raymond went to the Brier Bush again for luncheon. This time Mrs. Tweksbury did not accompany him.

He took a table at the far end of the room near the windows—he wanted light. He ordered his luncheon, read his paper, and to all intents and purposes gave the impression of a business man who, having discovered a place of good food, repaired to it with confidence. Of course Elspeth Gordon did not remember him—why should she? But Joan did—and why should she? She was reading the palms of a hilarious group near the table at which Raymond sat reading the stock reports; she was in a gale of high spirits but, when she was aware of Raymond's glance, she paused and caught her breath.

"Anything bad in my hand?" asked the girl whose palm Joan was scanning.

"Oh, no! Something splendid. You are never to make mistakes, because your caution is stronger than your desire," Joan murmured.

"I think that is stupid," the girl returned; "no fun in that kind of thing."

Joan prolonged each reading at the safe, jolly table; she planned, when she was done, to ignore the man near her and go in the opposite direction, but while she planned she was aware that she would do no such thing. The bird and the snake know this force, so do the moon and the tides.

And at last Joan got up and turned toward Raymond. As she passed his table—he was busy with his soup then—her head was high and her eyes fixed upon Miss Gordon at the other end of the room. She was estimating her chances of reaching Elspeth with the limited self-control at her command. Then she heard words and paused without turning her head.

"I wish you would stop a moment. I have a question to ask you."

Joan had a sudden fear that if she did not stop the question would be shouted.

"Very well," she said, quietly, and sat down opposite Raymond.

She clasped her pretty hands before her and—waited.

It is not easy to laugh away the moments in life that we cannot account for—they often seem the only moments of tremendous import; they are the channels which, once entered, give access to wide experiences. Joan felt her breath coming hard; she was frightened. Raymond pushed his plate aside and, leaning forward a bit over his clasped hands, said casually:

"Just how much of this rot do you believe?"

"None of it."

"Why do you do it?"

"I am earning my bread and butter and—dessert."

"Especially—the dessert?"

"No. Especially bread and butter. It is only a bit of fun, you know—this reading of the palms. Miss Gordon thinks it—it aids digestion," Joan was speaking hardly above a whisper.

"She does, eh?" Raymond had an insane desire to snatch the shielding veil from the face across the table. He wondered what would happen if he did?

"I wish," he said instead, "I wish you'd cut it out, you know."

"What—my bread and butter?"

"No—this tomfoolery. I don't believe you have to earn your living. I'd lay a wager that you are doing it as a stunt to vary the monotony of a dull existence, but there are other and better ways of doing that, you know."

Raymond was deadly earnest and did not stop to consider the absurdity of his words and tones.

"What ways?" asked Joan, and Raymond detected the suggestion of a smile behind the vapoury veil.

"I don't think I need to tell you that," he said.

"Perhaps not—but after consideration I've chosen this way. I like it." Joan was getting control of herself, and in proportion to her gain Raymond lost.

"I suppose you think me an impudent ass," he ventured.

"I'm—thinking of something else," Joan answered.

"What, for instance?"

"That line—in your hand."

"I thought you said this was only fun; that you did not believe in it?" Raymond frowned as he saw his next course advancing toward him.

"There are exceptions," and Joan helped him arrange his dishes.

"Some day, if you are interested, come and I'll tell you more about that line in your hand." She rose with quiet grace and moved away.

"Oh! I say—" Raymond followed her with his eyes—"why not to-day?"

"There are others," Joan tossed back and was gone.

That night she went to Patricia Leigh's. Patricia had had a busy and prosperous day. She had written some verses that she felt were good—they had a tang that always gave Patricia the belief in their quality; she had sold two other small things. She was, therefore, at her flightiest, and greeted Joan with delight.

"I'm so glad Syl is not tagging on, Joan," she said. "Syl is the best they make, but she does somehow get under the skin and make people feel themselves 'seconds'."

Joan sank into a chair.

"Syl is writing reams to her John," she explained. "I doubt if she noticed my leaving. She probably thinks I'm still singing."

And then Joan told Patricia about the man who, for some unknown reason, had made himself permanent in her interest.

"I wish I knew about him," she murmured; "I cannot recall any one in the least like him in Mrs. Tweksbury's life. I don't want to ask Aunt Doris—besides, he may just be a chance acquaintance of Mrs. Tweksbury's. I hardly think that, though—for she looks volumes at him and he sort of appropriates her."

Patricia was frankly interested—she was flying, and at such moments her bird's-eye view was a wide and sympathetic one.

Joan, too, in this mood was bewitching.

"All Joan needs," thought Patricia, "is to discover her sex appeal; get it on a leash and take it out walking. She's like a marionette now—hopping about, doing stunts, but not conscious of her performance."

"Lamb!" Patricia lighted a fresh cigarette, "a week from to-night you breeze in here and what I do not know about your young man, by that time, will not count for or against him."

"But, Pat, do be careful!" Joan was frightened by what she had set in motion.

"Careful, lamb? Why, if carefulness wasn't my keynote, I'd be—well! I wouldn't be here."



CHAPTER XIII

"Joyous we launch out on trackless seas carolling free, singing our songs."

A week from that night Joan again eluded Sylvia. She did it by not going to the studio for dinner. She felt deceitful and mean, but there were heights—or were they depths?—that Sylvia could not reach, and intuitively Joan felt that Sylvia would disapprove of what she was now doing.

Patricia was not in when Joan reached her rooms—they were small, dim rooms and rather cluttered.

Sitting alone, waiting, Joan thought of Patricia more intimately than she often did. She recalled what Sylvia had told of her; remembered the warnings, and her eyes dimmed.

"Poor old Pat!" she mused, "she's like a pretty bird—just lighting on things, or"—and here Joan thought she had struck on something rather expressive—"or like a lovely, bright cloud casting a shadow. No matter what colour the cloud is, the shadow's dark. Dear old Pat! Well—I see the colour."

This was satisfying and brought up her feeling about Patricia, which had been depressed.

And just then Patricia tripped in, humming and rippling and stumbling over a rug as she felt her way in the gloom—Joan had not turned on the lights. Presently she stopped short and asked sharply:

"Who is here?"

Joan bubbled over and Patricia gave a relieved laugh.

"Lordy!" she gasped, "you gave me a bad minute. I thought——"

"What, Pat?" Joan touched the switch.

"I—I thought—it might be someone else. I haven't had a thing to eat since breakfast," Patricia announced, dropping on a couch and pulling the cushions into all the crevices surrounding her thin, weary little body.

"I'll get the nicest little meal for you in a jiffy!" Joan sprang to her feet. "Is there anything to fix?" she added, quickly.

"There's always something"—Patricia closed her eyes—"eggs and milk and—and canned horrors." Then, with a radiant smile:

"I've been on the trail of your man, Joan, and it was some trail."

"Pat, darling," Joan hung over the couch, "you take a couple of winks. I'm going out to get—a steak."

"A what?" Patricia regarded Joan gravely. "A brand-new steak for me? Joan, you must be mad!"

"Pat, lie down and dream a minute or two. A steak, fried potatoes, a vegetable, and dessert with coffee, cheese, crackers—and—and——" Joan was putting on her hat while she spoke and Patricia was sniffing adorably.

A half hour later Joan crept noiselessly back, her arms full of bundles. Patricia lay fast asleep on the couch.

Sleep does revealing things, and in spite of her hurry, Joan stopped and looked at the girl lying in the full glare of the electric light.

She was like a weary child. All the hard lines on the thin face were obliterated; the soft hair fell in cunning curls about the neck and ears; the long lashes rested delicately on the fair skin.

All the world stains were covered by the sweet presence of Patricia's youth, which had stolen forth in slumber time.

Then it was that Joan discovered that she was crying. Big tears were rolling down her cheeks, and in her heart was growing a new, vital emotion—a selfless, nameless, urging tide of protection for something weak and helpless.

When the meal was prepared Joan kissed Patricia awake.

The girl sat up and gazed dazedly at the small table drawn to the couch, at the candles burning on it, at the covered dishes from which crept the most bewildering smells.

"The god of the famishing—bless you!" whispered Patricia and fell to the joy of the meal with the abandon of the starved.

She ate and drank and smoked. She let Joan wait upon her and dispose of the debris. She even directed Joan to the closet where her kimono and slippers were; she let Joan undress her and put them on.

"How thin you are, Pat lovey!" Here Joan kissed a white shoulder.

"A mere bag of bones, Joan lamb, but they are easy to carry around."

"And such ducks of feet, Pat, I never saw such cunning feet. They do not look big enough to be of use."

"They'll carry me as far as I have to go, Joan, and take it from me, I'm not keen for a prolonged trip. It's too much trouble to keep yourself alive to want to spin it out."

"Oh, Pat! Hasn't my dinner done you any good?" Joan smoothed the soft, fluffy curls tenderly.

"Why, you old darling," Patricia broke forth, "you've given me a glimpse of what would make it worth while—the trip, I mean. That's the trouble. I get the glimpse, acquire the taste, and then I wake up to—sawdust. Oh! good God, Joan."

Joan rose and turned off the lights; she left the candles burning and sat down on a stool by Patricia.

After a while Patricia reached for her cigarettes and spoke as if several big things had not occurred. She gurgled as a mischievous child might who had stolen jam and escaped detection.

"Your man, Joan," she began puffing away, "is named Kenneth Raymond. In tracking him I resorted first to Hannah Leland, society editor of Froth. Hannah stores up items about the upper crust as a squirrel does nuts. Her articles always have background; she's let in everywhere because folks are afraid to shut her out. She can see more through keyholes than others do through barn doors, and her scent is—phenomenal!"

Joan hugged her knees and looked grave.

"I—I hate to snoop, Pat," she whispered.

"You don't have to—I got Hannah's snoops for you. They're innocent enough—really, they're the soundest of sound little nuts.

"Mrs. Tweksbury had a romance! Don't grin, Joan. She didn't always look like a squaw in front of a tobacco shop—they say she was rather a stunner. She married Tweksbury before she got the bit in her mouth—afterward she clutched it good and proper and trotted the course according to the rules.

"Then came Raymond—this man's father. He somehow got it over to Mrs. Tweksbury—the real thing, you know, and she reached and got it over to him, that it was up to them to—keep it clean. Gee! Joan, her past sounds like a tract with all the sobs left out and a lot of iron put in.

"Raymond, in a year or two, married a woman who lived only long enough to produce this man upon whose trail we're scouting. This Kenneth was a measly little offspring and his mother's people undertook to give him a chance to live. He picked up and he and his father became pals—Hannah rooted out a picture of them riding horseback. Then the father was thrown from his horse and killed right before the eyes of the boy, and that put him back years—he barely escaped. I don't believe he would have, from accounts, if Mrs. Tweksbury hadn't butted in at that point and made it a matter of honour to the boy to—to—carry on!

"Well, once he mounted that horse he rode it as he did all others—hard and grim. He never played in all his life. He's been making good. Society he loathes; women do not exist for him, outside of Mrs. Tweksbury. I bet he knows her past and is paying back for his dad—he's like that.

"Well, when I'd got everything Hannah had in her safe I had a burning desire to have a look at Mr. Kenneth Raymond myself. So this afternoon I went to his office——"

"Pat!" cried Joan. "Oh! Pat, how could you?"

"Easiest thing in the world, my lamb. You see, the chance of viewing a human being—with one fortune in his pocket and another coming to him when Mrs. Tweksbury lets go—actually on a job holding it down like grim death—was a sight to gladden the heart of a tramp like me. I sallied down to Wall Street and had some fun.

"I found his building without a moment's delay and I casually asked the elevator boy where Mr. Raymond's office was, and the little chap grew effusive—either Mr. Raymond is lavish with tips, or the human touch, for his goings and comings are meat to that kid.

"He told me I had better hustle, for at four-thirty every day Mr. Raymond beat it! The boy was an artist in word-painting. He described my man as a real toff, none of your little yappers. He's going to haul in the pile and playing honest-to-God—fair, too!"

Joan burst out laughing. Patricia mimicked the ribald manner of the boy deliciously.

Patricia nodded her thanks and went on:

"Well, I hung around his corridor for ten minutes, Joan; and at four-thirty exactly his door opened and I had timed myself so perfectly that he tumbled over me and nearly knocked me down.

"He has better manners than you might expect from such a deadly prompt person. He steadied me and looked positively concerned when he realized what a pretty, helpless little thing I am!" Patricia gave a wicked wink and lighted her fifth cigarette.

"I told him I was looking for —— and I made up a preposterous name; and he puckered his lofty brow and said he couldn't recall any such name in the building, and then I told him I had about concluded that I had the wrong address, and he offered to look the name up for me, but I sighed and said that it was too late. My man always left his office at three-forty-five and that I would have to come again.

"We went down in the elevator together, the boy winking all the way down at me—and—that's all, Joan, except that you've got to go careful with Mr. Kenneth Raymond. You don't want to hurt that fairy godmother of his; she hasn't had many things of her own in life, and I do insist that while one is grabbing it's better to grab where there is a flock than pick a ewe-lamb. Besides, this Kenneth Raymond hasn't begun to understand himself—he's been too busy understanding life. Have a heart, Joan!"

Joan looked up sedately.

"Isn't it queer, Pat, but now that I know him he doesn't seem interesting in the least. He's priggish and conceited; he's a poser, too. It is too bad, Pat, for you to tire yourself out and get such a—a dry stick for your pains."

Patricia regarded Joan for a full minute and then she remarked:

"You had better go home and get to bed, child. And look here—I give you this advice free: a fire lighted by an idiot can do as much damage as any other kind of a fire."

"Thanks, Pat. I'll remember that when I—play around dry sticks. Good-night, you old, funny Pat, and thank you."

Joan bent and kissed the top of Patricia's head.

After that evening with Patricia Joan clung to Sylvia with unusual tenacity. She also went to see a well-known teacher of music and got his opinion of her voice.

"Your voice needs nearly everything to be done for it that can be done to a voice," the professor frankly told her, "but you have a voice, beyond doubt. You have feeling, too, almost too much of it; it is feeling uncontrolled, perhaps not understood.

"If you are willing to give years to it you will be a singer."

The man thought that he was killing hope in the girl before him, but to his surprise she raised her eyes seriously to him and said:

"I am a working girl, but I am saving for the chance of doing what you suggest. I will begin next winter. I think I know that I shall never be great, but I believe I will sing some day."

The man bowed her out with deep respect.

When Joan told of her interview Sylvia was delighted, and Patricia, who had happened in for a cup of tea, looked relieved.

"Of course you'll sing, Joan," she said, enthusiastically, "and if you don't turn your talent to account you'll bring the wrath of God down upon you. That Brier Bush is well enough to start you—but you're pretty well through with it, I fancy."

Patricia was arraigning herself with Sylvia for reasons best known to herself. She had the air of a very discreet young woman.

Long did Joan lie awake that night on her narrow bed. She had raised the shade, and the stars were splendid in the blue-black sky.

She was happier, sadder, than she had ever been in her life before—more confused.

She wanted Doris and Nancy and the shelter and care; she wanted her own broad path and the thrill that her own sense of power gave her. She wanted to cling close to Sylvia; she was afraid of Patricia but felt the girl's influence in her deepest depths.

In short, Joan was waking to the meaning of life, and it had taken very little to awaken her, for her time had come.

Three days later Kenneth Raymond ate his luncheon at the Brier Bush and spoke no word to Joan. The following day he nodded to her, and the day after that he said, in a low voice as she passed:

"I want to have you read my palm again."

"Once is enough," Joan replied.

"I have forgotten what you said," Raymond broke in; "besides, I have another reason. You've set me on a line of thought—you've got to clear the track."

"Oh, very well." And Joan sat down and took the broad hand in hers.

"I've read a lot of stuff since I saw you first," Raymond began. "There is something in this palmistry."

"I just take the words and play with them," Joan replied. "I truly do not know whether there is anything in it—or not. It is only fun here."

"Look at me!"

This Joan refused to do.

"There is that line in my hand like yours"—Raymond was in dead earnest—"what—does it mean?"

"I told you what it means," Joan faltered.

"Do you want me to read your palm?" Raymond bent farther across the table.

"Yes, if you can!" Joan was on her mettle. She instantly spread her hands to the bent gaze and prayed that no one would take the tables near by. It was late; the rush was over and Elspeth Gordon, for the moment, had left the room.

"You're not what you appear," Raymond began.

"Who is?" Joan flung this out defiantly.

"You're daring a good deal—to taste life. You're testing your line; making it prove itself—I haven't dared!"

Joan did not speak, and her small hands were as quiet as little dead hands in the strong ones which held them.

"Does it pay—the daring, the testing?" Raymond's eyes, dark and unfaltering, tried to pierce the veil.

"Yes—I think so."

"You make me want to try—do you dare me?"

"It does not interest me at all what you do." Joan was like ice now. "You evidently misunderstand our play here. Let go of my hands!"

"I haven't finished yet. You've got to hear me out."

"Let go of my hands!"

"All right—but will you stay here?"

"I'll stay until I want to go."

"Very well. I know I'm a good deal of a fool—but sometimes a slight thing turns the stream. I thought it was all rot—a play that you'd made up—this line business." Raymond spoke hurriedly. "Of course I'd heard of it, but I never gave it a thought. Just for sport, after that first day, I got bushels of books and I've been sitting up nights reading. There's something in it!"

Joan laughed. The man looked like an excited boy who had started a toy engine going.

"See here! They say your left hand is what you start with; your right hand what you have made of yourself—that line that you have and I have is in my right hand—is yours in both?"

Joan tried not to look—but ended in looking.

"No," she replied. "I reckon it only comes in the right hand with anybody."

"No, it doesn't; the lady I was with the other day hadn't it in either hand!"

"Isn't she lucky?" Joan laughed.

"No, she isn't!" Raymond spoke solemnly. "Only the people who have it—are."

"I'm going now." Joan got up; and so did Raymond.

"See here," he said, bluntly. "I've never had a bit of adventure in my life—I'm a stick. I don't know what you will think of me; I don't care much; but you've started something in me; it's nothing I'm ashamed of, either, and you needn't be afraid. But won't you talk to me some time—about—well, this stunt and some other things?"

"Certainly not!" Joan drew back and added: "and I am not in the least afraid."



CHAPTER XIV

"But after it comes our lives are changed."

And just when winter was turning to spring in the southern hills something happened to Nancy.

The winter at Ridge House had revealed many things. It had been lonely, and it had brought conviction about Joan's absence. The girl was not coming back to them, that must be an accepted fact. She would, undoubtedly, when she became adjusted, return on visits—but they must not expect her as a fixture, for she was succeeding! This realization had caused Doris many silent hours of thought, but never once had she known bitterness or a sense of injustice. Joan had as much right as any other human soul to her own development. Doris was glad that Joan had never known what Nancy knew about the need for coming to The Gap. The knowing would have held Joan back. With Nancy it was different. Nancy was not held from anything she wanted.

David Martin spent as much time as he could at Ridge House. He came to the hard conclusion, at length, that Doris, in her new environment, had reached her high-water mark. Detached from strain and care, living quietly, and largely in the open, she had responded almost at once—to her limit, and there she remained. How long this improved state would hold was the main thing to be considered; nothing more comforting could be looked for.

"Then, what next?" thought David, and his jaw grew grim.

And Nancy, with a winter far too quiet and uneventful even for her, had contrived to do some thinking for herself. Not for the world would the girl have accepted Joan's choice. The safe and sheltered life was wholly to her taste, but she wanted others to fall into line. Like many another, she was not content to hold her own views, she was unhappy unless she was approved and imitated. She wanted the spice and thrill of Joan in her life; Joan was part of it all—the rightful part. With this Nancy took to self-pity in order to establish her claim.

"Why should I be taken for granted and be obliged to give up all the fun and brightness while Joan does as she pleases?"

Doctor Martin, even Doris, expected Nancy to come when she was called and go to bed when the clock struck ten, while Joan could follow her own sweet will.

At this point Nancy re-read Joan's letters—all letters from Joan were common property. If ever there was innocent jugglery Joan's letters were. They were vivid and interesting; they carried one along on a stream as clear as crystal, but they arrived at nothing.

The studio was left to the imagination of the reader. Doris saw it as a safe and artistic home for earnest young girlhood; Nancy saw it as an open sesame to fun, rather wilder than school bats, but with the same delicious tang. Doctor Martin viewed the place as most dangerous, and those young people gathered there as perilous offsprings of a much-deplored departure from conservative youth.

"Fancy Joan helping in a restaurant!" groaned Nancy when Joan had particularized about her "job." "Joan, of all people!"

"It will be good practice," Doris remarked in reply. "When Joan marries, she will have had some experience."

"Marry?" David Martin broke in—he was on one of his flying visits. "If anything could unfit a girl for marriage, the thing Joan is doing is that."

"Very well," Doris said, quietly; "marriage isn't everything, David."

Doris was beginning to defend Joan, and it hurt her to be obliged to do so. She did not regret the relinquishing of the girl, but she had hoped, in her deepest love, that the experiment might either prove a failure or that it might carry Joan to a peak—not a dead level. It was beginning to seem that the sacrifice on her part meant simply separating Joan from her—not giving Joan to anything worth while.

There were moments, rather vague, elusive ones, to be sure, when Doris turned from Joan and contemplated Nancy.

"The child is perfectly content and happy," she thought; "but ought she to be so—at her age? Nancy should marry—she will, of course, some day.——" Then Doris wondered whom Nancy could marry.

"Next winter I may be able to go to New York," she comforted herself; "or I'll send Nancy to Emily Tweksbury; the child shall have her life chance."

But with Doris the inevitable was happening: she was sliding gracefully down the inclined plane which others had arranged for her. She was making no effort, because none was required of her. The peace and comfort of the old house in restoring comparative health had placed its mark upon her. It was wonderful to lie on the porch and watch the beauty of The Gap change from season to season. The sound of the river was always in her ears, and there was a dramatic appeal in kneeling at the altar in the tiny chapel to pray for them whom she loved so tenderly.

And Nancy was so sweet and companionable! Poor little Nancy! She was playing Doris's minor accompaniment as once she had played Joan's more vivid one. But the youth in her was surging and rebelling—not against love and service, but inequality.

"Joan should bear half, anyway!"

Just what it was that Joan should share Nancy could not have told, she simply knew that she wanted Joan—wanted what Joan represented.

With the passing of winter and the early coming of spring Nancy and Doris reacted to the charm of The Gap. The shut-in days were past. Almost before one could hope for it, the dogwood and laurel and azalea burst into bloom and the windows and doors were flung back in welcome to spring.

The grounds around Ridge House needed much attention, and Doris contrived to make Uncle Jed believe that he was the gardener. Nancy, surrounded by dogs, no longer pups, wandered on the Little Road and timidly took to the trails. It was quite exciting to go a little farther each day into the mysterious gloom that was pierced by the golden sunlight. Gradually the girl felt the joy of the mountaineer; vaguely the emotion took shape.

What lay just around the curve ahead? What could one see from that mysterious top? Was there a "top"? If one went on, overcoming obstacles, what might there not be? These ambitions were quite outside the by-paths once or twice taken with Father Noble.

Doris was glad to see the light and colour in Nancy's pretty face; she was grateful, but inclined to be anxious when Nancy wandered far.

"Is it quite safe?" she questioned Jed.

"Dat chile is as safe as she is with Gawd," Jed reverently replied—and perhaps she was, for God's ways are often like the trails of the high places—hidden until one treads them.

Nancy, by May, had lost all fear of the solitude, and with seeking eyes she wandered farther and higher day by day. She brought back wonderful flowers and ferns to Ridge House; she grew eloquent about the "lost cabins" as she called them, secreted from any gaze but that which, like hers, sought them out. She took gifts to the old people and timid children.

"It's such fun, Aunt Dorrie," she explained, "to win the baby things. At first they are so frightened. They run and hide—they never cry or scream, and bye and bye they come to meet me; they bring me little treasures, the darlings! One gave me a tiny chicken just hatched."

But beyond the last cabin that Nancy conquered was a hard, rocky trail that led, apparently, to the sharp crest called by Uncle Jed Thunder Peak.

"Does any one live on Thunder Peak?" asked Nancy of Jed.

The old man wrinkled his brow. He had not thought of Becky Adams for years; at best the woman had been but a landmark, and landmarks had a habit of disappearing.

"No, there ain't no reason for folks to live on Thunder Peak. It's a right sorry place for living."

Jed found comfort, now he came to think of it, in knowing that Becky had departed.

"Whar?" he asked himself, when Nancy, followed by two of her dogs, went away; "whar dat old Aunt Becky disappeared to?" Then he pulled himself together and went to deliver the message Nancy had confided to him.

"Tell Aunt Doris I'm going for a long walk and not to worry if I'm not home for luncheon."

Jed repeated this message over and over aloud. He fumbled it, corrected it, and then finally gripped it long enough to speak the words automatically to Doris and Doctor Martin.

"That old fellow," Martin said, looking keenly after him, "is going to go all to pieces some day like the one-hoss shay. He looks about a hundred. I wonder how old he is?"

Doris smiled.

"I imagine," she said, "that he is not as old as he looks. He told me that his grandfather was married in short trousers and never lived to get in long ones. They begin life so early and just shuffle through it."

"You find that thing in the South more than anywhere else." Martin was nodding understandingly. "It's like a dream—more like looking at life than living it. I suppose when they die they wake up and stretch and have a laugh at what they feared and passed through in their sleep."

"We will all do that, more or less, Davey."

"More or less—yes!" Then suddenly:

"Doris, I think you can plan on three months in New York next winter. My boy is coming on from the West. I'm going to take my shingle down and hang his up."

"Really, David? Take yours down?" Doris looked dubious.

"Yes. I'll stay around with him, but I'm going to put my shack on the map right under Blowing Rock. I've brought the plans to show you."

Martin took them from his pocket and sat down beside Doris, and while they became absorbed, Nancy was climbing her way up Thunder Trail.

Before she realized that she had come so far, she was in the open, the sunlight almost blinding her. She started back and screwed her eyes to make sure that she saw aright. Not only was she out of the woods but she was on the edge of a trim garden plot; there was a dilapidated cabin just beyond it, and an ancient creature standing in the doorway.

At first Nancy could not make out whether it was a man or a woman. She had never seen any one so old, and the eyes in the shrunken face were like burning holes—caverns with fire in them!

Nancy was too stunned to move or speak. Her knowledge of the hills forbade the usual fear, but a supernatural terror seized her and she waited for the old woman—she decided it was a woman—to make the first advance. This the woman presently did. She turned, and with trembling haste took up a rusty spade by the door; she shuffled toward a corner of the opening and began to dig at a mound that was covered with loose earth. Weakly, fearfully, the claw-like hands worked while Nancy stood fascinated and bewildered. Finally the old woman came toward her and there was a tragic pathos on the wrinkled face that tended to quiet the girl's rising fear. The cracked voice was pleading: