and this sum she raised with
increasingly greater difficulty. Extra and heart-straining effort had
been needed to raise the eight hundred dollars additional for interest
money on the mortgage last year. Next year it might have to come out of
the regular income and thus cut off two teachers. Beyond all this the
raising of ten thousand dollars to satisfy the mortgage seemed simply
impossible, and Miss Smith sat in fatal resignation, awaiting the coming
day.

"It's the Lord's work. I've done what I could. I guess if He wants it to
go on, He'll find a way. And if He doesn't--" She looked off across the
swamp and was silent.

Then came Zora's letter, simple and brief, but breathing youth and
strength of purpose. Miss Smith seized upon it as an omen of salvation.
In vain her shrewd New England reason asked: "What can a half-taught
black girl do in this wilderness?" Her heart answered back: "What is
impossible to youth and resolution?" Let the shabbiness increase; let
the debts pile up; let the boarders complain and the teachers
gossip--Zora was coming. And somehow she and Zora would find a way.

And Zora came just as the sun threw its last crimson through the black
swamp; came and gathered the frail and white-haired woman in her arms;
and they wept together. Long and low they talked, far into the soft
Southern night; sitting shaded beneath the stars, while nearby blinked
the drowsy lights of the girls' dormitory. At last Miss Smith said,
rising stiffly:

"I forgot to ask about Mrs. Vanderpool. How is she, and where?"

Zora murmured some answer; but as she went to bed in her little white
room she sat wondering sadly. Where was the poor spoiled woman? Who was
putting her to bed and smoothing the pillow? Who was caring for her, and
what was she doing? And Zora strained her eyes Northward through the
night.

At this moment, Mrs. Vanderpool, rising from a gala dinner in the
brilliant drawing-room of her Lake George mansion, was reading the
evening paper which her husband had put into her hands. With startled
eyes she caught the impudent headlines:

VANDERPOOL DROPPED

Senate Refuses to Confirm

Todd Insurgents Muster Enough Votes to Defeat

Confirmation of President's Nominee

Rumored Revenge for Machine's Defeat of Child Labor

Bill Amendment.

The paper trembled in her jewelled hands. She glanced down the column.

"Todd asks: Who is Vanderpool, anyhow? What did he