“Mercy yes! Forty-eight hours!” Cis’s laugh rang out. “You see, Miss Gallatin, I’ve been out in the world, earning my living since I was old enough to earn it, and that was early, because I was always quick to learn, and I was about twenty when I was fourteen. I’ve always had boy friends, and I’m not a bit afraid to chum with them. I’ve some good girl friends, chiefly one, but it’s the nice boy who always takes you as you want to be taken. So when I met Rod Moore we fell right together; I was getting green-lonely, and I’m pleased as pleasure to have him like me and see me on my way.” “I see!” Miss Gallatin evidently did see, yet Cis felt that her agreement was noncommittal, involving something that she did not understand. “I like you, too, Cis--did you say Cis?--Adair, and I hope you’ll let me help you out, if ever Beaconhite gets too tight for you; presses on any sore spot.” “Haven’t one!” cried Cis. “Thanks, Miss Gallatin; I like you, and I didn’t like you one bit till I saw you! I suppose it’s all right of you to shove me off, but it isn’t sensible, either; I could board in the house with all my boy chums, be the only girl in the offing, and it would go as smooth as silk.” “You may have knocked about the world, as you say you have, Cis Adair, and you may have been twenty at fourteen, but at twenty-two--I’d guess?--you are four in some ways, and your experience is by no means rounded out,” said Miss Gallatin oracularly. “Prudence is one of the gifts of the Holy Ghost, my dear, as your catechism taught you, and it’s one of His most valuable gifts to attractive young women, left alone in the world.” “I don’t remember much catechism, Miss Gallatin,” said honest Cis, with her happy laugh. “I learned some of it when I was confirmed, but I’m not much of a Catholic. Of course I’d never be a Protestant,” she added hastily, “but my religion doesn’t bother me much.” “No; it wasn’t founded for that purpose,” returned Miss Gallatin. “I wonder how you will be taught to value it? You’ve got to learn, of course you know that.” Cis looked at her startled, and she was silent for a moment in which her mind went out toward an invisible, infinite track, down which sorrow and suffering, vague, threatening, nameless, molding events, were advancing upon her. Cicely Adair, fearless, free, strong, independent, would be tamed, bound, caught, crushed, perhaps; signed by the cross, and thus learn its meaning. Cicely shook off the fear that gripped her, the first fear that in all her life had ever assaulted her deep in her heart. Why had it thus assailed her? What had made her vulnerable to a shaft from the hand of this gaunt woman, past middle age, whose effects were almost grotesque? Cis threw back her radiant head with a short, unmirthful laugh. “Did they name you Hannah because you were going to be a prophetess, Miss Gallatin?” she asked. CHAPTER VII CODES