"Liza do make a powerful scene when she is called to pass through her trial. This is her ninth, and I done urged her to act sensible, but when I saw how it was going with her, I just left her to reason it out along her own lines. Sally Taber is sitting 'long of her ready to help when the time comes. I done all I could." Tansey Moore nodded significantly.

He had an unreasonable wife of his own, and he had no sympathy with women in their "hours."

"Theodore Starr, he done say," Townley was becoming lachrymose, "that women got mighty nigh to God when they reached up to Him in their trial and offered life for a life. He done say if God didn't forgive a woman every earthly thing for such suffering, he was no good God. He done say that to me onct."

"That be plain blasphemy," Tansey Moore remarked. "I reckon he was a right poor parson. The religion he doctored with was all soothin' syrup and mighty diluted at that, where women was concerned. I never trusted that Yankee."

"The women, children, and old folks counted some on him in his day."

Greeley was getting interested in this heretofore myth. Moore nodded his head suspiciously.

"They sho' did, and a mess they made of it. Did you ever hear 'bout his mix-up with the Walden girls?"

Greeley never had and, as the last Walden "girl" was a woman of sixty and over, he looked puzzled.

"Miss Ann, her as _is_ now, was considerable older than Theodore Starr, but she shined up to him and let him lead her about considerable--some said him and her was--engaged to marry. Then there was the Walden girl as _isn't_ now, her they called Queenie. She was a right pert little thing what growed into a woman like a Jonas gourd, sudden and startling!

That was the summer that young Lansing Hertford came back to the old home place of his forebears to look about--there was a general mess of things up to Stoneledge those days, and all I know is that Starr he went up into the hills to nurse a fever plague and there he died. Lansing Hertford went off like a shot--but them Hertfords allus lit out like they was chased--never could stand loneliness and lack of luxury. Queenie, she done died the winter following that summer; died of lung trouble off to some hospital way off somewhere, and Miss Ann she settled down--an old woman from that time on! You can't get her to speak Starr's name. You never could. Us-all tried. When things got too hard for Miss Ann she done adopt little Miss Cyn--that chile has considerable brightened up Miss Ann, but Lord! she never was the same after that summer, and I hold, and allus shall, that Starr wasn't what we-all thought him at first. A man don't go dying off in the hills for folks what hadn't any call upon him, lest he has a reason for doing so."

Moore loved to talk. Some one always has to be the orator of a club, and Tansey, self-elected, filled this position in the circle around the old stove. Greeley was bored. Past history did not concern him and Moore's opinions he ignored. He had not been listening closely, for his thoughts would, in spite of him, follow the ramshackle buggy down The Way.

"She had a right pleasant look and manner," he pondered. "I reckon she'll get some fun out of her job, no matter what that job is."

CHAPTER III

It was something of a jog to The Hollow people to find Miss Lowe actually settled at Trouble Neck. They had looked upon the possibility of her coming as an evil which threatened but might be averted. She had come, however; had actually bought the cabin from Smith Crothers, and fitted it up in a manner never known to cabin folks before.

Through all the pleasant summer days the broad door of the little house stood invitingly open and flowers had grown up as if by magic in the tiny front yard. A few choice hens and roosters strutted around the rear of the cabin quite at home, and a bright yellow cat purred and dozed on the tiny porch by day and slept in the lean-to bedroom by night.

"She takes a mighty heap of trouble to hide her tracks," Norman Teale confided to Tansey Moore; "but spy is writ large and plain all over her. I put it to you, Moore, would any one that didn't have to, come to Trouble Neck?"

Tansey thought not, decidedly.

"And did you ever hear on a woman doctor?"

Again Tansey shook his head.

"That woman's bent on mischief," Teale went on. "I got chivalry and I've got honour for womanhood in my nater when womanhood keeps to its place, but I tell you, Moore, right here and now, if that young person from Trouble Neck comes loitering 'round my business, I'm going to treat her like what I would a man. No better; no worse."

Moore considered this a very broad and charitable way of looking upon what was, at best, a doubtful business.

But Marcia Lowe did not seek Teale out, and if his affairs interested her, she hid her sentiments in a charming manner. Her aim, apparently, was to reach the women and children. To her door she won Sandy Morley with the lure of money for his wares. The second time Sandy called he told her of his ambitions and she fired him to greater effort by telling him of her home state, Massachusetts.

"Why, Sandy," she explained, "when you are ready, do go there. In exchange for certain work they will make it possible for you to get an education. I know plenty of boys who have worked their way through college with less than you have to offer. Get a little more money and learning, and then go direct to Massachusetts!"

Sandy's breath came quick and fast. Work was part of his daily life, but that it and education could be combined he had not considered.

From that time on his aim became localized and vital.

"Perhaps I can help you a bit?" Miss Lowe had suggested. She was often so lonely that the idea of having this bright, interesting boy with her at times was delightful.

"I'll--I'll bring all your vegetables to you if you will," Sandy panted. "I'll dig your garden and weed it. I'll----"

"Stop! stop! Sandy." Miss Lowe laughed, delighted. "If you offer so much in Massachusetts they will give you _two_ educations. They're terribly honest folks and cannot abide being under obligations."

So Sandy came; did certain chores and was given glimpses of fields of learning that filled him at first with alternate despair and exultation. He confided his new opportunity to Cynthia Walden and to his amazement that young woman greeted his success with anything but joy.

"I thought you'd be right glad," said Sandy, somewhat dashed. "I thought you wanted me to learn and get on."

"So I do," Cynthia admitted, "but I wanted to do it all for you, until you went away."

"What's the difference?" argued poor Sandy.

It was middle August before Marcia Lowe took her courage in her hands and went to see Miss Ann Walden. With city ways still asserting themselves now and again in her thought, she had waited for Miss Walden to call, but, apparently, no such intention was in the mind of the mistress of Stoneledge.

"Perhaps after a bit she will write and invite me up there," Marcia Lowe then pondered. But no invitation came, and finally the little doctor's temper rose.

"Very well," she concluded, "I'll go to her and have it out. I'm not a bit afraid, and, besides, Uncle Theodore's business is too important to delay any longer. She doesn't know, but she _must_ know."

So upon a fine afternoon Marcia Lowe set forth. Grim determination made her face stern, and she looked older than she really was. When she passed the Morleys' cabin she smiled up at Mary, who was standing near by, but the amiable mistress ran in and slammed the door upon the passerby. A little farther on she came to Andrew Townley's home and she paused there to speak to the old man sunning himself by the doorway.

"You certainly do favour your uncle, Miss Marching," Andrew mumbled; he had heard the stranger's claim of relationship and trustingly accepted it; but her name was too much for him.

"Since you come I git to thinking more and more of Parson Starr. He was the pleasantest thing that ever happened to us-all."

"Oh! thank you, Mr. Townley!"

So lonely and homesick was the little doctor that any word of friendliness and good-will drew the tears to her eyes. They talked a little more of Theodore Starr and then the walk to Stoneledge was continued.

Marcia Lowe had never seen any of the family except from a distance, and she dreaded, more than she cared to own, the meeting now. Still she had come to set right, as far as in her lay, a bitter wrong and injustice, and she was not one to spare herself.

Her advance had been watched ever since she left Andrew Townley's cabin, but in reply to her timid knock on the front door, Lily Ivy responded with such an air of polite surprise that no one could have suspected her of deceit.

"Certainly, ma'am, Miss Ann is to home. She am receiving in the libr'y. Rest your umbril' on the table, ma'am, and take a char. I'll go and 'nounce you to Miss Ann."

Left alone, Marcia did not know whether she wanted to laugh or cry.

The brave attempt at grand manner in the half-ruined house was pitiful as well as amusing.

"This way, ma'am. My mistress done say she'll receive you in the libr'y."

And there, in solemn state, sat the mistress of the Great House. She, too, had had time to prepare for the meeting, and she was sitting gauntly by the west window awaiting her guest.

"It was right kind of you to overlook my neglect," Miss Walden began, pointing to a low chair near her own, "but I never leave home and I am an old woman."

The soft drawl did not utterly hide the tone of reflection on the caller's audacity in presuming to enter a home where she was not wanted.

The window was almost covered by a honeysuckle vine and a tall yellow rose bush; the afternoon breeze came into the room heavy with the rare, spicy fragrance, and after a moment's resentment at the measured welcome, Marcia said cheerfully:

"You see--I had to come, Miss Walden. I've only waited until I could become less a shock to you. You believe I _am_ Theodore Starr's niece, do you not? I know there are all sorts of silly ideas floating around concerning me, but I need not prove my identity to you, need I?"