s they await alone the ceasing of the rain or
the coming of the delayed boat.

"This won't last long," Johnnie repeated. "We won't dare to start out
when it first stops; but there'll come a little clearing-up shower after
that, and then I think we'll have a fair day. Don't you know the saying,
'Rain before seven, quit before eleven?' Well, it showered twice just as
day was breaking, and I had to wait under a tree till it was over."

The big drops lengthened themselves, as they came down, into tiny
javelins and struck upon the rocks with a splash. The roar and drumming
in the forest made a soft, blurring undertone of sound. The first rain
lasted longer than Johnnie had counted on, and the clearing-up shower
was slow in making its appearance. The two talked with ever-growing
interest. Strangely enough Johnnie Consadine, who had no knowledge of
any other life except through a few well-conned books, appreciated the
values of this mountain existence with almost the detached view of an
outsider. Her knowledge of it was therefore more assorted and available,
and Stoddard listened to her eagerly.

"But what made you think you'd like to work in a cotton mill?" he asked
suddenly. "After all, weren't you maybe better off up in these
mountains?"

And then and there Johnnie strove to put into exact and intelligent
words what she had possessed and what she had lacked in the home of her
childhood. Unconsciously she told him more than was in the mere words.
He got the situation as to the visionary, kindly father with a turn for
book learning and a liking for enterprises that appealed to his
imagination. Uncle Pros and the silver mine were always touched upon
with the tender kindness Johnnie felt for the old man and his life-long
quest. But the little mother and the children--ah, it was here that the
listener found Johnnie's incentive.

"Mr. Stoddard," she concluded, "there wasn't a bit of hope of schooling
for the children unless I could get out and work in the factory. I think
it's a splendid chance for a girl. I think any girl that wouldn't take
such a chance would be mighty mean and poor-spirited."

Gray Stoddard revolved this conception of a chance in the world in his
mind for some time.

"I did get some schooling," she told him. "You wouldn't think it to hear
me talk, because I'm careless, but I've been taught, and I can do
better. Yet if I don't see to it, how am I to know that the children
will have as much even as I've