Coniston, Book III.

ro; mightier changes than he suspected, and the girl did not know how zealous were the sentries of that

ry gay," s

an gay?" inq

ine of the sunset over Coniston, bu

nth

es

such a bad fellow-w-why didn

e did not wait for them. "It was because I wanted t

ourtin'," s

he left. It was characteristic of Cynthia not to have mentioned the subject which w

Sutton to give Cousin Eph the Brampton post-office

said Jet

ink he's a big fraud. He must have deceived you, Uncle

pite of himself, for he was an American. His lifelong hab

. He was sitting on Mr. Worthington's porch, and I heard him tell Mr. Worthington he would give the Brampton post-offic

did not

he post-office to Cousi

th

He meditated awhile, and then said suddenly

won't," sh

. She sat at her window watching the shy moon peeping over Coniston ridge, and she was thinking, to be exact, of how much could happen in one short day and how little in a long month. She was aroused by

When I first went up to Harvard"-probably meant to disclose the identity of the serenaders, as if that were necessary! Coniston, never having listened to grand opera, was entertained and thrilled, and thought

was another one; the other three were almost wholly about love, some treating it flippantly, others seriously-this applied to th

-Jethro did not speak of it until they had reached the sparkling heights o

Cynthy?" he inquired, as thou

hia heroically, "I bel

an-and Bob

" repeated Jethro, b

that Cynthia was an individual. She had good blood in her: as a mere child she had shouldered the responsibility of her father; she had a natural aptitude for books-a quality reverenced in the community; she visited, as a matter of habit; the sick and the unfortunate; and lastly (p

out from Brampton to the door of the tannery house, as usual, only it was remarked by astute observers and Jake Wheeler that certain statesmen did not come who had been in the habit of coming formerly. In short, those who made it a custom to ob

me. Similar wars had already started in other states, and when at length they were fought out another twist had been given to the tail of a long-suffering Consti

hitherto known to politics would be used. Of the three men who realized this, and all that would happen if one side

ro's foresight (known to few only) was that he perceived clearly that the time would come when the railroads and other aggregations of capital would exterminate the boss, or at least subserviate him. This alone, the writer

captured his pawn, the hill-Rajah. By getting through to Harwich, the Truro had made a sad muddle in railroad affairs. It was now a connecting link; and its president, the first citizen o

rial of strength in this mighty struggle was to be over (what the unsuspecting world would deem a trivial matter) the postmastership of B

f the Maine coast, but the blue-purple of the mountain, the color of the bloom on the Concord grape. His eyes, sweeping the mountain from the notch to the granite ramp of the northern buttress, fell on t

abruptly, "h-how'd you l

exclaimed Cy

n he added uneasily, "

ia la

night, Uncle Jeth

some finery for you in New York, Cynthy. D-don't want any of them town ladies to

up beside him

y, "when you make a senator or a

e were moments when he could not fo

nted, "of cours

that I don'

still more uneasily, "I callat

Cynthia, "that a woman ought

d then his glance fe

. "I always had some success in dressin

at the prospect of the trip before her. She had often dreamed of the great world beyond Coniston, and no one, not even Jethro, had guessed the longings to see it which had at times beset her. Often she had dropped her book to summon up a picture of what a great city was like, to reconstruct the Boston of her early childhood. She remembered

instead of to the tannery house. Ephraim greeted them from within with

bust again?

ethro, "how long sin

on-how

m refl

es before that bad spell I

ppiness, for she began to s

u've b'en in foreign

red Ephraim, with as

shington with us to-

ingt

ed, even as

on!" he e

t apologetically, "and we kind of thought we'd like to have you with us

h Cynthia and Jethro felt that he would have liked to have said something app

e nine o'clock from B

d the resignation of the old man who had so long been postmaster at Brampton was freely discussed-or rather the matter of his successor. As the months passed, Ephraim had heard David Wheelock mentioned with more and more assurance for the place. He had had many nights when sleep failed him, but it was cha

de trunk that bore the letter W. Following the trunk came a radiant Cynthia, following Cynthia, Jethro Bass in a stove-pipe hat, with a carpetbag, and hobbling after Jethro, Ephraim Prescott, with another carpet-bag. It was remarked in the buzz of

meadows guarded by blue hills veiled in the morning haze. Then, bustling Harwich, and a wait of half an hour until the express from the north country came thundering through the Gap; then a five-hours' journey down the broad river that runs sou

ro's arm between the carriages and the clanging street-cars, and looked upon the riches and poverty around her. There entered her soul that night a sense of that which is the worst cruelty of all-the cruelty of selfishness. Every man going his own pace, seeking to gratify his own aims and desires, unconscious and heedless of the want with which he rubs elbows. Her natural imagination enhanced by her

Bass, and dipped the pen in the ink and handed it to him that he might register. By half-past nine Cynthia was dreaming

f the hills with them into that teeming place, and many who, had come to the city with high hopes, now in the shackles of drudgery; looked after them. They were a curious party, indeed: the straight, dark girl with the light in her eyes and the color in her cheeks; the quaint, rugged figure of the elderly man in his swallow-tail and brass buttons and square-toed, country boots; and the old soldier hobbling along with the aid of his green umbrella, clad in the blue he had loved