Yes, here was Brampton, and in spite of the haze the sun had never shone so brightly on the terraced steeple of the meeting-house.  He leaped out of the cab almost before the engine had stopped, and beamed upon everybody on the platform,—­even upon Mr. Dodd, who chanced to be there.  In a twinkling the young man is in Mr. Sherman’s hack, and Mr. Sherman galloping his horse down Brampton Street, the young man with his head out of the window, smiling; grinning would be a better word.  Here are the iron mastiffs, and they seem to be grinning, too.  The young man flings open the carriage door and leaps out, and the door is almost broken from its hinges by the maple tree.  He rushes up the steps and through the hall, and into the library, where the first citizen and his seneschal are sitting.

“Hello, Father, you see I didn’t waste any time,” he cried; grasping his father’s hand in a grip that made Mr. Worthington wince.  “Well, you are a trump, after all.  We’re both a little hot-headed, I guess, and do things we’re sorry for,—­but that’s all over now, isn’t it?  I’m sorry.  I might have known you’d come round when you found out for yourself what kind of a girl Cynthia was.  Did you ever see anybody like her?”

Mr. Flint turned his back, and started to walk out of the room.

“Don’t go, Flint, old boy,” Bob called out, seizing Mr. Flint’s hand, too.  “I can’t stay but a minute, now.  How are you?”

“All right, Bob,” answered Mr. Flint, with a curious, kindly look in his eyes that was not often there.  “I’m glad to see you home.  I have to go to the bank.”

“Well, Father,” said Bob, “school must be out, and I imagine you know where I’m going.  I just thought I’d stop in to—­to thank you, and get a benediction.”

“I am very happy to have you back, Robert,” replied Mr. Worthington, and it was true.  It would have been strange indeed if some tremor of sentiment had not been in his voice and some gleam of pride in his eye as he looked upon his son.

“So you saw her, and couldn’t resist her,” said Bob.  “Wasn’t that how it happened?”

Mr. Worthington sat down again at the desk, and his hand began to stray among the papers.  He was thinking of Mr. Flint’s exit.

“I do not arrive at my decisions quite in that way, Robert,” he answered.

“But you have seen her?”

“Yes, I have seen her.”

There was a hesitation, an uneasiness in his father’s tone for which Bob could not account, and which he attributed to emotion.  He did not guess that this hour of supreme joy could hold for Isaac Worthington another sensation.

“Isn’t she the finest girl in the world?” he demanded.  “How does she seem?  How does she look?”

“She looks extremely well,” said Mr. Worthington, who had now schooled his voice.  “In fact, I am quite ready to admit that Cynthia Wetherell possesses the qualifications necessary for your wife.  If she had not, I should never have written you.”