"Travel alone!" she said to Levi later when she had cowed the poor man by her determination and exactions, "of course I can travel alone. Am I an idiot, Levi, or a fool? Haven't I a good American tongue to ask questions with? I remember our mother once told us she would spank us well if we ever got lost in a place where folks talked the same language we did. You put me on the train at The Forge with a through seat in a Pullman, telegraph to Mary Jane to meet me in New York, and I guess I can manage."

"But, 'Tilda, what on earth has seized you to act so uncertain in the middle of this visit? What will they think of you and me?"

Then Matilda made her master stroke and, by virtue of her sex-privilege, completed her triumph over her brother.

"Levi," she said--she was standing before him, her thin hands on his shoulders--"I ain't ever had what you might call a real fling where my emotions and sentiments were concerned. Let go of me, just this once, and trust me! I've always been sort of held back. First it was father and mother; then Caroline, and lastly you! I ain't never done exactly what I wanted to do without explaining, and now I want to be left free even if I die for it!"

"Well, well!" blurted Levi, but he caught the idea. "I guess women do have a sense of the tight rein now and then; it may lie loose mostly, but it never is quite laid off. 'Tilda, you may cut and run now, for all of me. I'll see to what, you may say, are your animal comforts--parlour car seats, tickets, and some one waiting for you in town, but you kick the heels of your inclinations good and high for once and I bet you and me will run the rest of the race together better, forever after. Whoop it up, 'Tilda, and remember money needn't be a hold back. You've got a big, fat slice coming to you, old girl."

Now that Levi had dropped the reins, the spirit of adventure possessed him. He and Sandy saw Matilda off on her journey three days later, in high spirits.

"I tell you, boy," he confided on the way back to the cabin, "it's a mighty good sign when a woman wants to jump the traces, and a good man isn't going to lick her into submission for doing it. The chances are a woman wouldn't take to kicking if the traces didn't chafe. I've meant to be kind to Matilda, but kindness can be chafing at times. A woman like Matilda, a little, self-sacrificing woman, is real enlightening if you pay attention."

Matilda seemed to develop and expand during that trip North. She ordered her meals with an abandon that electrified the waiters on the train, and then her sense of economy demanded that she should eat what she had ordered. Her tips were dazzling and erratic, but they, and her quaint personality, won for her great comfort and care. She was in better condition, physically, than she had been for many a day when, one golden winter afternoon, she stood in Olive Treadwell's drawing-room in Boston and waited for Cynthia. Mrs. Treadwell was out, but the "young lady," the maid said, was in.

"How very fortunate," thought Matilda and then took her rigid stand across the room. Unconsciously she was waiting to see what Lansing Treadwell had done to this girl of the hills whom he had so ruthlessly and breath-takingly borne away. Lans was, unknowingly, before the most awful bar of judgment he had ever stood--the bar of pure womanhood!

There was a step upon the stairs; a quick, yet faltering step, and then Cynthia entered the room and came toward Matilda Markham with deep, questioning eyes and slow smile. The impression the girl made was to last the rest of Matilda's life. Once, years before, Matilda had seen a rare and lovely butterfly caught in the meshes of a net, and, oddly enough, the memory came to her now as she looked at the sweet, starry-eyed creature advancing. She was as surely caught in an invisible net of some kind as the long-ago butterfly had been. Matilda Markham noted the conventional gown of dull blue with silver trimming; the little slippers to match, and the silken stockings; her eyes rested upon the string of small silver beads wound around the slim throat; all, all were but part of the mesh that caught and held the spirit that had ceased to struggle.

How lovely she was, this Cynthia of Lost Hollow, in spite of the crude conventions! The frank, waiting eyes were as gray-blue as her mountain skies; the lips, half-parted, had not forgotten to smile above the hurt and pain of her tiring days and homesick nights; the smooth braids of shining hair bound the lifted head just as dear Madam Bubble had designed them on the morning when the portrait of "The Biggest of Them All" was hung in the Significant Room.

"You--wanted to see--me?"

The drawl had become sacred to Matilda's ears.

"Yes, my child. I have come from your old home just to see--you."

A faint colour stole into the whiteness of the fair face.

"From Lost Mountain?" Oh! if Sandy could have heard her say that word how it would have rested his soul! "From Lost Mountain?"

"Yes, my dear. Come and sit here beside me."

Matilda could not stand longer. Her knees shook beneath her for, like a blinding light, the knowledge came to her that poor Lans, with all his faults, was exonerated from any wrong to this young girl! The innocent old eyes and the radiant young ones had no veil between them.

Sitting side by side they smiled bravely at each other and then Cynthia reached out her hands.

"You are"--she whispered--"you are Sandy Morley's fairy godmother! Oh!

I know all about you. Lans has told me. I am right glad--oh! mighty glad to see you!"

The voice shook with emotion and Matilda Markham could not answer for a moment. Never in her life had she been so moved. She longed to take this girl to her heart and hold her there, but instead she found herself, presently, telling the homely news of the hills to the hungry soul whose yearning eyes never fell from her face.

"And the little doctor is my own aunt, you know?"

"Yes, child. They told me all about it."

"It's right good to have one's own--at last;" this was plaintively whispered; "and my dear, dear father. You know his story, too?"

"Yes. It lives in the hills and speaks for him even to-day."

"They-all say I'm like my father."

"I am sure you must be. You are like Miss Lowe, and I guess one can always tell which parent a boy or girl is like. I guess Sandy, now, is like his mother. He doesn't favour his father."

"Yes. I reckon Sandy must be like his mother. I had never thought of that before."

Cynthia's eyes were fixed and dreamy.

"And you, child, are you happy and content?"--the words of Sandy were the only ones possible--"I must tell them all about you when I go back."

"You are--going back?" the yearning was unmistakable--"I thought, maybe, you were going to stay here--I'd be mighty glad to have you near."

"I'm coming home, to my own home a little later. I'll see you often then."

Slowly they were advancing and retreating, this woman and girl, but each venture brought them a little nearer. Like the incoming waters of a rising tide a slight gain was made, moment by moment. Then suddenly and unexpectedly a rushing current bore them to the high mark.

"You poor, homesick child! Come cry it out and have done with it!"

It was not like Matilda Markham to so assert herself; it was not like the dear, brave Madam Bubble to succumb as she now did; but, in another instant she was kneeling where Sandy had knelt a few nights before, and clinging to the dear hands which had, then, rested upon his bowed head.

The wall of suppression that Cynthia had raised, during the past weeks, between her mountain life and this artificial one of the city, crumbled at the message from the hills. Her part in the strange drama sank to insignificance, and in her weakness she was able to view it clearly and dispassionately with this plain little woman who had come to serve her.

"I did not understand," she sobbed; "I was tired--there had been the night in the storm, you know. I did not want to make trouble and--oh!

how can I tell you, but it was only when the little doctor--my aunt--explained everything that I saw myself standing alone in the confusion with something I must say and do! I couldn't let them do my work for me, dear lady,"--the quaint expression caused Matilda Markham to draw in her breath sharply--"I was no longer a child and I had to bear my part. When we-all stood in Sandy's cabin and the truth came to us-all, at once, I reckon for the first time in my life, I realized I was a woman. I couldn't take my chance and leave Lans out. They-all wanted to save me from myself, but they forgot him and then when he said"--the girl gasped--"that he wanted me--I had to go! I did not go because any one compelled me--I just had to go! I was led like when I married Lans. More and more I see it now; I feel it in the night. It did not _happen_, dear lady; it all leads up to something God wants me to do; something no one can do as well as I. Sandy had his call--you know how he responded? Well, I have my leading. We-all, of the hills, get near God, dear lady. We are lonelier; we need Him more and He speaks more plainly to us, I reckon."

The superstition and mysticism of Lost Hollow held every thought and fancy of this girl, but Matilda Markham realized that they gave her strength and purpose as they had poor Sandy before her.

"Oh! my dear, my dear!" was all she could say, but she freed one of her cool hands from Cynthia's hot one, and laid it like a benediction on the girlish head.

"I am waiting, dear lady, for the thing I am to do, and Lans is mighty kind. He is my big brother and I am his little sister--until I can read my way plain. You did not know he was so good?"

"I thank God that he is!" breathed Matilda Markham devoutly.

"I wish I could make--Mrs. Treadwell understand. She--laughs!"

Matilda felt her ire rise. The laugh of Olive Treadwell could be brutal and cruel in its sweetest ripple!

"It seems right long and wearying waiting, waiting for the meaning."

Cynthia's slow words flowed on. She had ceased crying and was looking up now with brave, clear eyes, "and part of me is there--in Lost Hollow. That part of me comes to comfort _this_ part of me--can you understand, dear lady?"

Matilda nodded. She did, indeed, understand.

"And that part of me makes this part of me--stay here! After that mighty hurry and trouble when Lans and I came away alone I was right frightened. There was just once--while we stayed a few hours in New York that I--that something happened. I was in a room, Lans had gone out to order luncheon and I felt I had to run away! I stood with my back against the wall when he came in and I reckon I was wild, for he came close and took my hands this-er-way----" Cynthia was acting the vivid scene standing now before Matilda Markham and holding her hands--"and he said slow and firm, 'lil' girl, I'm not going to hurt you. You and Sandy Morley are not going to see me fail!' And then that part of me that lives always in Lost Hollow went back mighty safe and strong. I haven't been afraid, dear lady, since."

Then it was that Miss Markham arose and realized her strength to its full extent.

"Child," she said, "I've changed my mind about going back to Lost Hollow to-morrow. I'm going to Bretherton and that is only a half hour by rail from here. I want you to come to me, there. I must see you again. I'll explain to Mrs. Treadwell and Lans. I declare I haven't felt so like my old self for years and years."

"Oh! dear lady!" Cynthia's shining eyes were large and happy; "dear lady! you mean you will let me see you in your own home?"