"Look!" she cried, pointing to the old wooden clock which stood on the mantel. "I didn't have a frame to put the picture in, and I was afraid it would get spoiled without glass over it. While I was looking around the room wondering what to do, I happened to notice that it was the same size as the pendulum. Daddy lifted it down for me, and I fastened the picture on that. So there it is all safe and sound behind the glass door, and I can see it from any part of the room.
"And, oh, Maggie, you don't know how it helped me last night. It made the play seem so real to me. As I lay here watching the pendulum, it stopped saying 'Tick tock, tick tock.' It seemed to me that the Princess was looking straight at me, saying, instead, 'For love—will find—a way!' Then I knew that she meant me. That love would help me bear the pain for daddy's sake; that my living along as bravely as I could was like spinning the golden thread, and that I mustn't think about the great skein that the weeks and months were piling up ahead for me to do; I must just spin a minute at a time. I can stand the pain when I count it with the pendulum. Even when the fire died down and I couldn't see her any longer, I could hear her saying it over and over, 'For love—will find—a way.' And I lay there in the dark and pretended that I was a princess, too, spinning love's golden thread, and that my dove was a little white prayer that I could send fluttering up to God, asking him to help me find the way to be brave and patient, and to hang on to life as long as I possibly can for daddy's sake."
Little did the Shadow Club dream that day how far their shadow-selves were reaching. But Betty's song brought comfort and courage for many an hour into Roney's lonely life, and the greatest solace in her keenest suffering was the smiling face of the Princess, swaying back and forth upon the pendulum.
CHAPTER IX.
ONE RAINY AFTERNOON
That same Saturday afternoon following the Hallowe'en frolic, while Maggie rehearsed the whole affair once more in the cabin, the Shadow Club discussed it at the seminary. They had met early, for Lloyd and Betty had asked permission to make candy in their room, and in order to finish the amount of work they had planned to do at each meeting, it was necessary for them to begin immediately after dinner.
It was a dull November day, cloudy and damp, and while they were settling themselves to work, the rain began to patter against the window-panes.
"How cosy and shut-in it makes you feel!" exclaimed Katie, looking around on the bright, comfortable room.