higher honour could a mountain woman bestow than this!

But Mrs. Tansey Moore had never taken the little doctor up socially.

"It's this-er-way. We-all can't act out what's in us-all. You know,
Rose-Lily"--Mrs. Moore had one of the funeral-design names which so
often decorated the plainest of her sex among the hills--"we-all just
get caught in the wheels and go round like what we-all have to. I
reckon you wouldn't have let your Sammy-Jo into the factory if the
heart of you could ha' spoke. Seems like yesterday when I saw them-all
totin' Sammy-Jo up The Way to kiss you good-bye, an' him only ten years
old an' dyin' o' the hurt o' the wheels."

Rose-Lily bowed her head on her work-roughened hands and sobbed
miserably.

"An' I reckon I wouldn' ha' let my po' lil' half-wit chile go--if I
could ha' helped it. When Mason licked him down The Way o' mornin' it
made the soul o' me sick. When the factory burned I thanked A'mighty
God for, starvin' or not starvin,' the po' lil' feller couldn't go!
The night he died in Miss Lowe's cabin when she war tryin' her charm on
him--I jes' war right glad, for the factory down to The Forge war jes'
about done and I war thankful he couldn't get caught in the wheels
agin! I tell yo', Rose-Lily, the mother in us-all don't get a chance
in The Hollow, but the Cup-o'-Cold-Water Lady don' say things is goin'
to be different. She 'lows that the Home-school will jes' make up to
us-all for what's been denied."

Mrs. Moore moaned softly and shook her head. "It don't
sound--earthly!" she muttered.

But Cynthia, tripping light-heartedly over the gold and red leaves by
The Way, sang her gayest songs and cared not a rap for the new factory
or the unearthly Home-school; she was thinking of Martin Morley's cabin
and the miracle that had been performed there. She was bound for the
cabin. Martin would surely be away, for his "job" demanded that he
should watch the men working in gangs on the new buildings. Sandy was
up North. He had been summoned there by Levi Markham, who had wanted
to come to The Hollow but had been held back by Sandy.

"They are taking me hard," Sandy had written; "let me have time to win
them over before you come. Your money is a great drawback to me."

Then Markham wrote a characteristic command. The faithful old heart
throbbed through every line and had caused poor Sandy to laugh until he
cried:

Then come up North at once with reports and plans. I'm not goin