Miss Lowe went close and took the pretty face in her hands.
"See here, little girl, if suffering is a teacher it is not such a cruel thing; be a good learner."
"No. Last night in the blackness and fear something happened--here!" The girl put her hand over her heart. "But now with the sun shining over Lost Mountain, it's all so right safe and still and happy that I'm sorry for the hurt of last night. No, I am not going to suffer. I'm going to be just lil' Cyn again. I thought you would like to know."
"Oh, dear," and then Marcia laughed. "You-all make me want to cry so easily! I am glad, dear. Surely I do not _want_ any one to suffer; but see here, will you come to me every day, Cynthia? I want to teach you some necessary things. Things like--well--book things! Things that Sandy just loved."
"I reckon I will, Cup-o'-Cold-Water Lady!"
Then she was gone as she had come. Crothers' touch had only alarmed her; it had not soiled her.
"Thank God!" murmured the little doctor; "the woman in the child shielded her from all but physical shock! And what a quaint philosophy for a girl to evolve."
That evening as Marcia Lowe stood before her little mirror in the lean-to, braiding her long smooth hair, she talked a bit for comfort's sake.
"It's plain luxury to lie in my own bed again," she said, "the bench in the other room can never be made anything but a martyr's cot." Then she glanced up and faced her own smiling image with the braids twisted about the head.
"Oh!" she faltered, falling back, "oh! Uncle Theodore!" For there, smiling at her with the slow, lingering smile, the face of Cynthia seemed to shine out by the flickering candlelight, instead of her own!
The long dressing-gown gave a childish setting to the little doctor's form, the coronet braids; the happy, smiling face was young and wonderfully, strikingly like Cynthia's.
"They always said I was so like Uncle Theodore! I've got Cynthia to her father by way of--me!"
Then the Cup-o'-Cold-Water Lady did a most unaccountable thing--she fairly pranced about the room.
"I've found it!" she sang; "without resurrecting old Miss Susie May Lanley! What's a stupid marriage certificate compared to God's plain handwriting? I can keep my secret now, Uncle Theodore, until the right time. It was so good of you, dear, to give me proof."