The clerk made it out and handed it over in silence.  Wetherell had in his pocket the money from several contributions to the Guardian, and he paid him.  Then they set out for the station, bought their tickets and hurried past the sprinkling of people there.  The little train for Truro was standing under the sheds, the hissing steam from the locomotive rising perpendicular in the still air of the morning, and soon they were settled in one of the straight-backed seats.  The car was almost empty, for few people were going up that day, and at length, after what, seemed an eternity of waiting, they started, and soon were in the country once more in that wonderful Truro valley with its fruit trees and its clover scents; with its sparkling stream that tumbled through the passes and mirrored between green meadow-banks the blue and white of the sky.  How hungrily they drank in the freshness of it.

They reached Truro village at eleven.  Outside the little tavern there, after dinner, the green stage was drawn up; and Tom the driver cracked his long whip over the Morgan leaders and they started, swaying in the sand ruts and jolting over the great stones that cropped out of the road.  Up they climbed, through narrow ways in the forest—­ways hedged with alder and fern and sumach and wild grape, adorned with oxeye daisies and tiger lilies, and the big purple flowers which they knew and loved so well.  They passed, too, wild lakes overhung with primeval trees, where the iris and the waterlily grew among the fallen trunks and the water-fowl called to each other across the blue stretches.  And at length, when the sun was beginning visibly to fall, they came out into an open cut on the western side and saw again the long line of Coniston once more against the sky.

“Dad,” said Cynthia, as she gazed, “don’t you love it better than any other place in the world?”

He did.  But he could not answer her.

An hour later, from the hilltops above Isaac Worthington’s mills, they saw the terraced steeple of Brampton church, and soon the horses were standing with drooping heads and wet sides in front of Mr. Sherman’s tavern in Brampton Street; and Lem Hallowell, his honest face aglow with joy, was lifting Cynthia out of the coach as if she were a bundle of feathers.

“Upon my word,” he cried, “this is a little might sudden!  What’s the matter with the capital, Will?  Too wicked and sophisticated down thar to suit ye?” By this time, Wetherell, too, had reached the ground, and as Lem Hallowell gazed into his face the laughter in his own died away and gave place to a look of concern.  “Don’t wonder ye come back,” he said, “you’re as white as Moses’s hoss.”

“He isn’t feeling very well, Lem;” said Cynthia.

“Jest tuckered, that’s all,” answered Lem; “you git him right into the stage, Cynthy, I won’t be long.  Hurry them things off, Tom,” he called, and himself seized a huge crate from the back of the coach and flung it on his shoulder.  He had his cargo on in a jiffy, clucked to his horses, and they turned into the familiar road to Coniston just as the sun was dipping behind the south end of the mountain.