ugh it had been a failure, had brought her this golden message
from the one who had, through the effort he preached, risen to the very
top.

Then the last two paragraphs of the master's letter made her forget
everything else.

"I have had constantly in my mind that strange child who played and
danced in your garden. She has haunted me. You told me her name was
Nonie Hopworth. I have looked up records and have learned that the
young student who, fifteen years ago, gave such promise of dramatic
ability, was Ilona Carr and that she married an Eric Hopworth. This
Nonie is without doubt her child.

"Will you ask the child's guardians if they will allow her to come to
my school at Tarrytown for a few years? There she will have the best
schooling and dramatic training that my teachers can give and her
talent will have an opportunity for development and growth. When she
is older she shall choose for herself whether or not she will follow
the calling----"

"The fairy godmother has come," declared Nancy, later, bursting in upon
the Hopworth family with her strange news. She had to read and re-read
the letter so that they could understand and Eric Hopworth had to hear
all about the afternoon at Happy House when the great Theodore Hoffman
had called.

At first he had decidedly opposed the plan. Liz had snorted in
disapproval. Nonie had stared at first one, then another, with round,
bewildered eyes.

"You ought not to throw away such a chance. It's a wonderful
school--I've visited there. Nonie will have splendid training----"

"I know all about it," Eric Hopworth had broken in, and Nancy suddenly
remembered what the master had told her.

"Tell me about Nonie's mother," she begged.

There was not much to tell--she had come into Eric Hopworth's life and
gone out again, in a few years.

"I always had a feelin' I'd cheated her of a lot," Eric Hopworth said
humbly, turning in his hand the photograph he had brought out from old
Dan'l's bureau to show Nancy.

It was a cheap little photograph, taken a few months after they had
been married. But the pretty face that smiled out of it was a happy
face. Nancy, as she studied it closely, wondered if it had ever been
shadowed by a regret for the dreams she had sacrificed by her marriage.

"Then--don't cheat Nonie now," Nancy answered.

So before she went away it was decided that Nonie should go to
Tarrytown and while little Nonie was pinching herself to be sure she