“A man!” cried Miss Lucretia, “and ‘stars on my shoulder’!  I think this kind of talk has gone far enough, Ephraim Prescott.”

“Cousin Eph,” said Cynthia, laughing, “you’re no match for Miss Lucretia, and it’s long past your bedtime.”

“A man!” repeated Miss Lucretia, after he had retired, and after Cynthia had tried to express her gratitude and had been silenced.  They sat side by side in front of the chimney.  “I suppose he meant that as a compliment.  I never yet saw the man I couldn’t back down, and I haven’t any patience with a woman who gives in to them.”  Miss Lucretia poked vigorously a log which had fallen down, as though that were a man, too, and she was putting him back in his proper place.

Cynthia, strange to say, did not reply to this remark.

“Cynthia,” said Miss Lucretia, abruptly, “you don’t mean to say that you are in love!”

Cynthia drew a long breath, and grew as red as the embers.

“Miss Lucretia!” she exclaimed, in astonishment and dismay.

“Well,” Miss Lucretia said, “I should have thought you could have gotten along, for a while at least, without anything of that kind.  My dear,” she said leaning toward Cynthia, “who is he?”

Cynthia turned away.  She found it very hard to speak of her troubles, even to Miss Lucretia, and she would have kept this secret even from Jethro, had it been possible.

“You must let him know his place,” said Miss Lucretia, “and I hope he is in some degree worthy of you.”

“I do not intend to marry him,” said Cynthia, with head still turned away.

It was now Miss Lucretia who was silent.

“I came near getting married once,” she said presently, with characteristic abruptness.

“You!” cried Cynthia, looking around in amazement.

“You see, I am franker than you, my dear—­though I never told any one else.  I believe you can keep a secret.”

“Of course I can.  Who—­was it anyone in Brampton, Miss Lucretia?” The question was out before Cynthia realized its import.  She was turning the tables with a vengeance.

“It was Ezra Graves,” said Miss Lucretia.

“Ezra Graves!” And then Cynthia pressed Miss Lucretia’s hand in silence, thinking how strange it was that both of them should have been her champions that evening.

Miss Lucretia poked the fire again.

“It was shortly after that, when I went to Boston, that I wrote the ’Hymn to Coniston.’  I suppose we must all be fools once or twice, or we should not be human.”

“And—­weren’t you ever—­sorry?” asked Cynthia.

Again there was a silence.

“I could not have done the work I have had to do in the world if I had married.  But I have often wondered whether that work was worth the while.  Such a feeling must come over all workers, occasionally.  Yes,” said Miss Lucretia, “there have been times when I have been sorry, my dear, though I have never confessed it to another soul.  I am telling you this for your own good—­not mine.  If you have the love of a good man, Cynthia, be careful what you do with it.”