coming
fulfillment of beauty. She was very lovely, tall, slim, slightly
bending, like a reed that had bowed to the wind instead of resisting.
The child look, full of question and waiting, was still in her clear
blue-gray eyes; the well-formed mouth had not forgotten its pretty,
slow smile, and the pale, exquisite whiteness of the smooth skin was
touched with a delicate tan and colour that did credit totally Taber's
care and culinary art.

"I feel," whispered the girl, tossing the braids of her smooth
gold-brown hair back from her face; "I declare I feel as if something
was going to happen long o' me!"

Not for a moment did Cynthia imagine anything ill. Out of a barren,
isolated life she had evolved and held to the strict philosophy she had
once confided to Marcia Lowe in the little church. If trouble overtook
her, she shielded herself as well as possible, smiled pleadingly and
stepped aside. At such courtesy Trouble had obligingly gone on leaving
the girl of nineteen as trusting and hopeful as a child. The old house
had crumbled and tottered. Ann Walden had sunk into positive
imbecility--but Cynthia had kept her faith and love. Sally Taber still
ruled the Great House under the disguise of grateful dependent. She
slept in the loft over the kitchen, made life a possible thing for a
helpless woman and a young girl, and asked nothing for herself in
return.

"If that woman doesn't have a crown studded two deep with jewels some
day," Marcia Lowe confided to Tod Greeley, "I'll miss my guess."

And Tod, for various reasons, did what he could to show his
appreciation of the old woman's nobility.

"Yo' sho' do give proper weight to us-all." Sally often told him.
"Things do las' mor'n one could expect, fo' de money."

"I ain't goin' to run the risk of any pesky government investigation,"
Greeley replied. "Better be on the safe side, I reckon."

And now Cynthia again remarked to the pretty May morning:

"I feel as if something was going to happen 'long o' me."

Then she got up and made her simple toilet. The shining braids were
wound coronet-style about the shapely head, and some moments were
devoted to the choice of a gown. There were three hanging on nails
behind the door leading to the hall; a checked gingham, brown, ugly and
serviceable; a faded pink chambray, and a new, dull blue linen. This
last was a gift from Marcia Lowe. It was the longest, most modern
garment Cynthia possessed, and the colour fille