"To-night?" Fourteen and twelve have no perspective--everything is final and vital to them. The past has been but a witchery of preparation in a fairy tale of wonder and delight; the actual experience of action found them both unfitted for the ordeal, but in each boy and girl is the potential man and woman, and Sandy and Cynthia met the present moment characteristically.

"I dreamed two dreams," said the girl with a shade of mysticism in her tones. "Once I saw you going down The Way, Sandy, with the look on your face that you now have. I stood by the big pine just where the trail ends in The Way, and watched you. Then I dreamed last night that I stood by the big pine again and you were coming up The Way a-waving to me like you knew I would be there. There was a look on your face--a new look--but I knew it, for I've seen it before in the Significant Room." Cynthia paused, for the question in Sandy's eyes held her.

"You know my story?" she said with her delicious laugh thrilling her listener; "the story part of my life?"

"Oh!" It came to Sandy then, in this strained, prosaic moment, the memory of Cynthia's fancy to set her little world in the frame of her "Pilgrim's Progress," the only book of fiction free to her. "Oh! yes, now I remember."

"Sandy, all these years I have tried and tried to make you fit in--but you wouldn't until--until last night. When it was right dark and still and everybody was sleeping, I went down into the old library--that's where Aunt Ann had the queer spell the day Miss Lowe came--the room is all dirty and full of ashes, for the chimney fell that afternoon; but right beside the fireplace there is an empty space on the wall that I've always saved for you!"

Cynthia had forgot the present in her fantastic play and she held Sandy as she always had before by the trick of her fascination.

"Yes," he murmured; "there is your mother's picture and the old general's and the frame that holds your father's portrait--the father that no one knows about but you--and now--am I hanging in the Significant Room?"

Sandy was all boy now; the strange new dignity fell wearily from him--he was playing, after a hard lesson, with little Cyn.

"And what am I?" he asked, "what have you made me?"

"Oh! I did not make you, Sandy. You just were! The moonlight was streaming in through the window where the roses and honeysuckle are--it was a leafy moonlight and all ripply like dancing water. I was not afraid--I went right boldly up to--your picture, Sandy, and I knew you at once. You know in the Significant Room of my book it says there was a man in a cage; the man and his dream; and the man that cut his way through his enemies--the biggest of them all! But, oh! Sandy, mighty plain and fine I saw you like you were all three of the book folks.

You were Sandy of the cage--and the cage was Lost Hollow! You were Sandy with your dream of helping us-all. Me, the po' lil' white trash in Crothers' factory--everybody! Then you were Sandy cutting your way through your enemies like the Hertfords are to your family; I heard Aunt Ann telling Ivy--and then right sudden I saw you hanging up in a gold frame with the ripply moonlight shining on you---- The Biggest of Them All!"

Sandy's eyes were brilliant and glittering; his breath came quick and hard, and to steady himself he whispered:

"I am going away--to-night!"

The vision vanished and Cynthia felt two large tears roll down her cheeks. They left no sorry stains upon the pale smoothness of the girl's skin; Cynthia's eyes could always hold a smile even when dimmed; her eyes were gray with blue tints and her straight, thick hair was the dull gold that caught and held light and shade. Some day she was going to be very handsome in an original and peculiar fashion, and Sandy unconsciously caught a glimpse of it now, and it disturbed him.

"I am going--to-night. I wonder if there is enough?"

He glanced at the box. "I have never counted it."

"Never counted it? I have counted it every week. That's because I am I, and you are you, Sandy. There's over thirty dollars."

At this Sandy gasped.

"I--reckon it will take me to Massachusetts," he said.

"I reckon it will take you to the world's end," Cynthia, the mystic exclaimed, "and back again!"

"Back again!" Sandy's imagination could not stretch past a certain limit.

"But you are coming back, Sandy?" A startled fear crept into the girl's eyes; "you promised!"

"I shall come back--yes!"

"Let us count the money together, Sandy."

Dishevelled dark head and smooth bright one bent close in the dimming light. There was a far-distant rumble of thunder, but neither heeded it; showers were almost daily occurrences, and excitement and concentration ran high. Suddenly Sandy started back and pointed to a small roll of bills--three one-dollar bills they were--but Sandy had never put a piece of paper money in the box!

"That!" he whispered hoarsely; "how did that get here?"

Too late Cynthia saw her mistake. All the small savings and sacrifices of her life she had exchanged that very day at the post-office for the three bills. Tod Greeley had picked out the cleanest and newest, and now they had betrayed her.

Sandy was on his feet at once, and a stern frown drew his brows together; the bruise on his cheek stung as the blood rushed to it, and then he waited.

Presently Cynthia rose to her feet and from her slim height faced Sandy on the level--eye to eye.

"I put it there!" defiance and pride touched the words, "it means as much to me as it does to you--the going away, I mean. I've thought it all out--you'll have to pay it back--pay it as I want it."

Sandy's mind worked more slowly; gropingly he strove to understand.

"How did you get it?" he asked relentlessly.

Cynthia laughed a little.

"Just scratches and pricks--it was great fun! I've been gathering the wool from the bushes under which the sheep go, for years and years; ever since you began to save, Sandy. Lily Ivy sold the wool to the darkies--and I got Mr. Greeley to change the pennies--for bills. It is all mine, every bit!"

A mist rose to Sandy's eyes--it almost hid that pure flower-like face shining under the dark trees.

"You mustn't be mean, Sandy; besides, you are to pay it all back."

"How?" That word was all Sandy could master for a sharp pain in his throat drove all else he meant to say back.

"Why, you are going to set me free--you must marry me!"

Like a child playing with fire Cynthia heedlessly spoke these words.

They had no deeper significance to her than the lilt of a world-old song. Marriage was the end-all and consummation of her magic stories and, in this case, it had simply been a trifle more difficult to consider on account of the social difference between Sandy and her.

However, that had been overcome by the wand of imagination. Sandy would evolve into something so peculiarly splendid that the chasm could be bridged!

The effect of Cynthia's words upon Sandy was tragic. He closed his eyes in order that he might shut out the hurting power of her face and commanding eyes--but between the lids and his vision the girl mocked him--he could not escape her!

The night before his manhood had been stung to life by Mary's cruelty; it was fanned into live flame now by the childish tenderness of this girl so near to womanhood that the coming charm and sweetness glorified her. Then she touched him and a wave of delicious pain coursed through his body.

"How did--this happen?" A finger lightly passed over the bruise on his cheek. He could not answer.

"I know! But they couldn't hurt the you of you, Sandy. I see the bigness shining through everything. Why do you keep your eyes shut?"

Sandy opened his eyes desperately and saw only the child until eye met eye again, and then the vision of what Cynthia foretold shook him once more.

"My head--spins," he said vaguely; "the day's heat made it ache."

"You will take my money, Sandy?"

"Yes."

"And you will come back and--marry me?"

"I'll come back and--and----"