dwell next remarked apropos of
nothing. "She's right handsome, Lans. You ought to be less a fool and
behave normally. She'd make a mighty sensation if----" But this did not
interest the absorbed third party in the box at all.

When the play was over and the audience was crowding into the lobby,
Cynthia noticed the girl of the tenth row near them. She was not looking
at them, but she gave the impression of listening to what they said.
Again the face claimed Cynthia's attention.

"Brother," she said softly to Lans, "is that a friend of yours? She
looks mighty sad."

Lans gave another sharp start and rather abruptly replied:

"I knew her once. Come, little sister, that is our number being called.
We must not hold up the line of taxis. Aunt Olive is out of sight."

Strangely enough Cynthia did not dream of the play that night; nor did
the sad, fair face of Lans's one-time friend hold part in her visions,
but she did dream of Lost Mountain as she had not dreamed of it in many a
night. She was back among the dear, plain home scenes. She was planning
with Sandy the Home-school; she was in the cabin at Trouble Neck with the
little doctor. The sun was shining in the broad, opened door and she and
Marcia Lowe were sitting where the warm brightness flooded them. And at
that juncture of the dream something very vivid occurred. Quite
distinctly she heard the little doctor say:

"In all the world there is nothing so important as this, Cyn. Remember
it as long as you live."

Upon awakening, Cynthia, in her still, dark room, found herself haunted
by the dream and the little doctor's words. They were startling, yet
strangely familiar. When, before, had Marcia Lowe spoken them; what had
she meant? Then suddenly it came back to Cynthia. It was about little
children!

"Our loves and our poor selves!" Marcia Lowe had often said, and
especially when she and Cynthia were working over the little ones of the
hill cabins, "what do they matter compared to the sacred lives of these
helpless creatures?"

She had been quite fierce about it once when she had told Liza Hope that
God would hold her responsible if she brought any more blighted souls
into existence through Mason's passion and her own weak yielding.

Lying awake and trembling in the small room off of Olive Treadwell's,
Marcia Lowe's words returned with sharp insistence and kept Cynthia
wakeful for many an hour.

The next morning she was alone when the maid c