are for you as a daughter might, and then, at the end, I
believe as truly as God hears me, that you win stand straight and take
your place--_your_ place--among men!"

"A charm?" Morley panted, for he was quite overcome by the power
exerted over him.

Full of zeal and trust, seizing upon anything to gain her end, Marcia
Lowe replied:

"Exactly--a charm! See!" and suddenly she turned to the closet beside
the chimney-place; taking out a small bottle she held it up to the
light with a glow of reverence upon her uplifted face. "Fifteen tiny
grains of this!"

Morley was fascinated.

"Fifteen grains," he repeated, like a man talking in his
sleep--"fifteen grains!"

"Yes, yes! and then you must have--faith! You know you always _must_
have faith in charms."

Morley assented to this.

"Will--you--will you try?"

"I--reckon I will, mum!"

"Will you promise? Oh! If I have ever done anything to make you
grateful, promise! promise!"

"I promise!"

From that night the cure began. Shut away against the mountain-world,
favoured by one of the hill storms, prolonged and depressing, the
little doctor tested her charm. She was nurse and companion as well as
physician. Willing to do battle and take the consequences for the
faith that was in her, she wrestled with her problem. Men had proven
the thing elsewhere--why not she, here among her dead uncle's people?

"You cannot eat until I tell you to, Martin Morley," she said.

For the first day or so the weakened man, used to deprivation, made no
demur; then his haggard face and imploring eyes pleaded for food, and
on the third day he asked for it, cried for it like a starving child.
This wrung Marcia Lowe's heart.

"Oh! we women," she whispered to herself scornfully; "I declare I must
put a watch upon myself or I will find myself going to the cupboard and
betraying the faith of Doctor Marcia Lowe!"

Then she resorted to subterfuge, and playfully bullied poor Morley.

"See! If I do not eat, can you not keep me company? What manners have
you, Martin Morley, to eat while a lady starves?"

The wretched fellow tried to smile, but wept instead.

After that, Marcia Lowe rarely left the room; never unless Morley
slept. She stole like a thief to her closet and ate her food when, and
as she could.

"It's the nurse of Martin Morley who refreshes herself," she thought
comfortingly.

It was on the fifth evening of the battle with the deadly foe of the
mountain poor