standing
as you stand now under the dogwoods, to welcome me, but now that I have
come up The Way I find myself a--stranger!"

Cynthia was clutching the bough of a tree for support; her eyes were
strained and pathetic.

"I--I do not know what I have expected," she whispered, her eyes
clinging to his; "but it is this-er-way. I have made a different
Sandy, and I've kept him so long in my dreams and fancies, that to see
him a _man_, hurts. Oh! it hurts here!"

The clasped hands touched the panting bosom. Then Sandy came close to
her and laid his firm, thin hand upon hers. The touch, the contact,
brought sharply to the girl the memory of their parting when, beside
The Way, she had asked him to marry her some day and Sandy had kissed
her!

"Little Cynthia, try to make a place in Lost Hollow for the man Sandy,
who has come home a lonely stranger."

He seemed old and detached, but his nearness and the memory of their
last interview composed Cynthia. She drew back and the withdrawal hurt
Sandy more than she could know.

"I--I must go!" she panted and turned, as in the old parting, and ran
without one backward look.

Sandy stood and gazed after her with yearning eyes. Outwardly she was
all his faithful heart could have asked. Her face, as he had seen it a
few moments ago under the dogwoods, seemed placed there by some kind
and good Providence to welcome him to his own after all the waiting
years; the child, Cynthia, he had lost while he tarried afar. Manlike
he was ready to accept the woman. But Cynthia was not a woman, and her
immature nature was shocked and betrayed by him who had come claiming
what she had ready, only for the boy of her childish faith and love.

Sad at heart, Sandy, after a few moments of readjustment, went
mournfully up the trail leading to the old home-cabin. One bright
gleam, alone, cheered him. There had been some mistake. Martin Morley
was evidently alive and to him Sandy must look for welcome and the
renewing of old ties.

The change in the cabin was startling. Empty, but neat and pleasant,
the living-room stood open to the fair spring day. Flowers were
standing in the windows in dented tin cans; the hearth was swept free
of ashes and there was a small garden in the rear of the house, nicely
laid out and planted. It seemed so like his own old garden that Sandy
gazed upon it with strange emotions. He relived sharply the starved
years of preparation, the cruelty and neglect. H