Unlike, and separated by every circumstance that, according to the
expected, should have kept them apart--they still had the same problem
to confront and the solution had its beginning in that pleasant home for
Episcopal Sisters which clings so enchantingly along the north side of
what is known as Silver Gap, a cleft in the Southern mountains.

To say the solution of these women's problems had its beginnings in
Ridge House is true; but that they were ever solved is another matter
and this story deals with that.

Meredith Thornton was young and beautiful. Up to the hour that she let
go she had lived as they live who are drugged. She had looked on life
with her senses blurred and her actions largely controlled by others.

Old Becky, on the other hand, had gripped life with no uncertain hold;
she, according to the vernacular of her hills, "had the call to larn,"
and she learned deeply.

Sister Angela had clung to the Wheel. She had swung well around the
circle and she believed she was nearing the end when the strange demand
was made upon her.

The demand was made by Meredith Thornton and Becky Adams. Meredith, from
her great distance, somewhat prepared Sister Angela by a letter, but
Becky, being unable either to read or write, simply took to the trail
from her lonely cabin on Thunder Peak and claimed a promise made three
years before.

And now, since _The Rock_ played a definite part in what happened, it