g to
let you make ducks and drakes of my hard earnings without knowing why.
Matilda--isn't very strong. She's taken to counting her blessings
nights instead of sleeping. By the way--have you heard anything of
Treadwell? His new fangled moral van has gone smash, they say; not
called by its old-fashioned name, and he's--skipped. If you hear
anything of him, let me know.

Sandy had been away ten days and every day Cynthia had gone to the
cabin, set it in order for Martin's comfort; revelled in the wonder of
it all and feasted her soul on the books in Sandy's study.

Cynthia had slowly, reluctantly but finally given up her ideal Sandy of
the past. She still kept his one letter to her and her hundred and one
letters to him in an oil-cloth package in the old tree. Sometimes she
stole away and read them and cried a little, softly, forlornly, as a
little girl might do for a broken doll. "The Biggest of Them All"
relegated to his fate, Cynthia had turned to this new son of the Hills
with frank and open mind. She weighed him, considered him and found
him interesting. She was sensitive to success, and this practical,
good natured, kindly Sandy was decidedly successful. He was as modest
and unassuming as one could desire, but he had only to wave his hand
and say so-and-so and lo! the old cabin grew and became beautiful, a
factory sprang up, then a dream of a school which included everyone and
everything. It was like a modern fairy story--the most exciting and
compelling thing one could imagine.

Slowly, cautiously, Cynthia with childish curiosity approached this new
being who had arisen on her horizon. Sandy, wise in the lore of the
hills, lured her as cautiously. He had subdued his own emotions. He
was a man; his life had developed him; she was still a child with the
radiant woman of her blindly, gropingly, looking forth from the dear,
blue-gray eyes. He could wait. She would be his dream of the hills
and some day she would come true and he would tell her how he had
always loved her; how her pale, sweet face, under the dogwood flowers,
had kept him strong and pure and unspoiled through all the yearning
years. He could wait until Cynthia, the woman, awoke and--looked at
him! In the meantime he worked and grew marvellously happy in his
earnest, quiet way. He made a seat for her in his study window--though
she never knew how carefully he had arranged it, or how desperately he
had struggled to get the right col