ds tenderly. Marcia Lowe had taught her the words and tune
after her fright at the time of the fire. It had been Cynthia's first
evening song; she had often quieted her sudden fears in the dark nights
by repeating the tender words:

Through the long night watches----

and sleeping, surely with white wings above them, Ann Walden and
Cynthia lay side by side when old Sally came to rouse them.

Shocked and frightened, Sally got Cynthia from the room without the
girl realizing the conditions. Pacifying her by a promise to "take her
turn" at the bedside, she left the girl in her own chamber while she
ran, panting, stumbling--often pausing to rest--to Trouble Neck.

"Ole Miss Ann don' gone out at the turning o' the tide," she sobbed to
Marcia Lowe.

"And little Cyn?"

"Come, oh! come," pleaded Sally; "fo' she cotch on."

"And now," thought the doctor as she mounted her horse with Sally
astride behind, "I'm going to bring your little girl home, Uncle
Theodore, and take my chance and your chance with her!"

CHAPTER XIX

Old Sally Taber sat in the full glow and warmth of an early October
afternoon and looked about Sandy Morley's kitchen. The glow came from
the sun which streamed through the broad window; the warmth emanated
from the stove which Marcia Lowe had trained Sally to understand and
respect. The cooking utensils, too, had become tractable objects in
Sally's determined hands, for with a perpetual land of promise and
fulfillment in sight, the old woman had rallied her forces for the
homestretch.

Since the day when Ann Walden was laid in the family plot and Cynthia
had been taken to Trouble Neck, Sally had lived in Sandy Morley's cabin
and gloried in the title of "housekeeper."

"Three weeks," muttered Sally, sitting with her skirts well drawn up;
her feet, encased in "old woman's comforts," resting comfortably in the
oven of the stove.

"Three whole weeks an' po'k chops every day when there ain't something
better."

With that she got up, went to a corner cupboard and brought out her can
of vaseline.

"Yo' lyin' ole chile," she muttered; "yo' can sho' res' from yo'
labours. This am a lan' o' honey an' the honeycomb."

Then voluntarily Sally raised the lid of the stove and pushed the tin
can in upon a blazing piece of wood. The flames caught the grease and
licked it greedily from the outer side of the box:

"Massa Fire," laughed Sally; "yo' like dat po'k chop?"

Then the heat hungrily