Mr. Tucker had divulged to her the night before that her mother had abandoned the designs she had been entertaining for Douglas, and she in turn had been able to pass on the good news to Douglas. Mrs. Carter had not told her daughter herself but was evidently going to take her own good time to do so. Their mother's being a bit cattish was not worrying either Douglas or Nan. They were too happy over the abandonment of the plan. Of course they could not help feeling that since the plan was abandoned, it would have been sweet of their mother to let Douglas know immediately since she was well aware of the fact that the idea was far from pleasing to her daughter. And since it would have been sweet of her to let her know the moment she had abandoned the plan, it was on the other hand slightly cattish of her to conceal the fact. Of course the girls did not call it cattish even in their own minds--just thoughtlessness. Douglas had no idea of how the change had come about, and Nan held her counsel. It was Mr. Tucker's and her secret. As she crept out of the cot on that morning, before the sun was up, she glanced at her elder sister and a feeling of intense satisfaction filled her heart to see how peacefully Douglas was sleeping. Her beautiful hair, in a great golden red rope, was trailing from the low cot along the floor of the tent; her face that had looked so tired and anxious lately had lost its worried expression--she looked so young--hardly any older than Lucy, who lay in the next bed. "Thank goodness, the poor dear is no longer worried," thought Nan devoutly as she slipped on her clothes and crept noiselessly out of the tent. What a morning it was! The sun was not quite up and there was a silver gray haze over everything. The neighboring mountains were lost, as were the valleys. The air had a freshness and sweetness that is peculiar to dawn. "'The innocent brightness of a new-born day is lovely yet,'" quoted Nan. "If I can only get to the top of the mountain before the sun is up!" She hurried along the path, stopping a moment at the spring to drink a deep draft of water and to splash the clear water on her face and hands. She held her face down in the water a moment and came up shaking the drops off her black hair, which curled in innumerable little rings from the wetting. She laughed aloud in glee. Life was surely worth living, everything was so beautiful. The sides of the mountain were thickly wooded but at the top there was a smooth plateau with neither tree nor bush. One great rock right in the middle of this clearing Nan used as a throne whereon she could view the world--if not the world, at least a good part of Albemarle county and even into Nelson on one hand and Orange on the other. Sometimes she thought of this stone as an altar and of herself as a sun-worshipper.