“Oh, his trouble is _real_ enough,” Mrs. Porter declared. “I tell you that in spite of my hatred for him, and even in spite of his cowardly insinuations against me ringing in my ears last night, I felt sorry for him. It would pierce a heart of stone to hear him talk as he did to her. If she resists, she will be a stronger woman than I would have been at her age and under the same circumstances. Pshaw! what would I have cared if I'd loved a man with all my heart and fate had deprived him of a name to give me--what would I have cared for the opinions of a little handful of people pent up here in the mountains when he was asking me to go with him out into the wide world and take my chances along with him? I don't know, Brother Hillhouse, but that I'd have gloried in the opportunity to say I was no better than he was. That's the way most women would look at it; that's the way, I'm afraid, _she_ will look at it.” The preacher turned upon her, cold fury snapping in his eyes and voice. “You talk that way--_you!_” he snarled--“and you her mother! You are almost arguing that because _his_ father and mother branded him as they did that he and Cynthia have a right to--to brand their--their own helpless offspring the same way. Sin can't be compromised with.” “Ah, you are right. I wasn't looking far enough ahead,” Mrs. Porter acknowledged. “No, we must save her. Heaven could not possibly bless such a step as that. I want her to hear somebody talk on that line. Say, Brother Hillhouse, if I can get her to come to church to-morrow, could you not, in a roundabout way, touch on that idea?” “God knows I am willing to try anything--anything!” the minister said, despondently. “Yes, bring her, if she will come. She seems to listen to me. I'll do my best.” “Well, I'll bring her,” Mrs. Sorter promised. “Good-morning. I'd better get back. They will wonder what's keeping me.” XXXIII FOR midsummer, the next morning was clear and cool. Nathan Porter rolled the family spring-wagon down to the creek and washed off the wheels and greased the axles. “Your pa's getting ready to drive us to church, Cynthia,” Mrs. Porter adroitly said to the girl as she was removing the dishes from the table in the diningroom. “I wish you'd go with me. I hate to sit there with just your pa.” There was an instant's hesitation visible in Cynthia's sudden pause in her work and the startled lift of her eyebrows. Then she said: “All right, mother, if you want me to, I'll go.” “Well, then, go get out your white muslin and flowered hat. They become you more than anything you wear.” Without further words Cynthia left the room, and Mrs. Porter walked out into the hall and stood in the front door-way.