“Well,” said he, with a final tug at the tuft, “if that’s the way you feel about it.”

“Feel about what?” said the judge, fiercely.

“Callate you know best,” said Mr. Dodd, and passed on up the street.  But he felt the judge’s gimlet eyes boring holes in his back.  The judge’s position was very fine, no doubt for the judge.  All of which tends to show that Levi Dodd had swept his mind, and that it was ready now for the reception of an opinion.

Six weeks or more, as has been said, passed before the curtain rose again, but the snarling trumpets of the orchestra played a fitting prelude.  Cynthia’s feelings and Cynthia’s life need not be gone into during this interval knowing her character, they may well be imagined.  They were trying enough, but Brampton had no means of guessing them.  During the weeks she came and went between the little house and the little school, putting all the strength that was in her into her duties.  The Prudential Committee, which sometimes sat on the platform, could find no fault with the performance of these duties, or with the capability of the teacher, and it is not going too far to state that the children grew to love her better than Miss Goddard had been loved.  It may be declared that children are the fittest citizens of a republic, because they are apt to make up their own minds on any subject without regard to public opinion.  It was so with the scholars of Brampton village lower school:  they grew to love the new teacher, careless of what the attitude of their elders might be, and some of them could have been seen almost any day walking home with her down the street.

As for the attitude of the elders—­there was none.  Before assuming one they had thought it best, with characteristic caution, to await the next act in the drama.  There were ladies in Brampton whose hearts prompted them, when they called on the new teacher, to speak a kindly word of warning and advice; but somehow, when they were seated before her in the little sitting room of the John Billings house, their courage failed them.  There was something about this daughter of the Coniston storekeeper and ward of Jethro Bass that made them pause.  So much for the ladies of Brampton.  What they said among themselves would fill a chapter, and more.

There was, at this time, a singular falling-off in the attendance of the Brampton Club.  Ephraim sat alone most of the day in his Windsor chair by the stove, pretending to read newspapers.  But he did not mention this fact to Cynthia.  He was more lonesome than ever on the Saturdays and Sundays which she spent with Jethro Bass.