“Well,” said Ephraim, simply, “the other boys was gettin’ full of bullets and dysentery, and it didn’t seem just right.  The leg troubles me some on wet days, but not to amount to much.  You hain’t thinkin’ of dyin’ yourself, be ye, William?”

William was thinking very seriously of it, but it was Cynthia who spoke, and startled them both.

“The doctor says he will die if he doesn’t go to the country.”

“Somethin’ like consumption, William?” asked Ephraim.

“So the doctor said.”

“So I callated,” said Ephraim.  “Come back to Coniston with me; there hain’t a healthier place in New England.”

“How could I support myself in Coniston?” Wetherell asked.

Ephraim ruminated.  Suddenly he stuck his hand into the bosom of his blue coat, and his face lighted and even gushed as he drew out a crumpled letter.

“It don’t take much gumption to run a store, does it, William?  Guess you could run a store, couldn’t you?”

“I would try anything,” said Wetherell.

“Well,” said Ephraim’ “there’s the store at Coniston.  With folks goin’ West, and all that, nobody seems to want it much.”  He looked at the letter.  “Lem Hallowell’ says there hain’t nobody to take it.”

“Jonah Winch’s!” exclaimed Wetherell.

“Jonah made it go, but that was before all this hullabaloo about Temperance Cadets and what not.  Jonah sold good rum, but now you can’t get nothin’ in Coniston but hard cider and potato whiskey.  Still, it’s the place for somebody without much get-up,” and he eyed his cousin by marriage.  “Better come and try it, William.”

So much for dreams!  Instead of a successor to Irving and Emerson, William Wetherell became a successor to Jonah Winch.

That journey to Coniston was full of wonder to Cynthia, and of wonder and sadness to Wetherell, for it was the way his other Cynthia had come to Boston.  From the state capital the railroad followed the same deep valley as the old coach road, but ended at Truro, and then they took stage over Truro Pass for Brampton, where honest Ephraim awaited them and their slender luggage with a team.  Brampton, with its wide-shadowed green, and terrace-steepled church; home once of the Social Library and Lucretia Penniman, now famous; home now of Isaac Dudley Worthington, whose great mills the stage driver had pointed out to them on Coniston Water as they entered the town.

Then came a drive through the cool evening to Coniston, Ephraim showing them landmarks.  There was Deacon Lysander’s house, where little Rias Richardson lived now; and on that slope and hidden in its forest nook, among the birches and briers, the little schoolhouse where Cynthia had learned to spell; here, where the road made an aisle in the woods, she had met Jethro.  The choir of the birds was singing an evening anthem now as then, to the lower notes of Coniston Water, and the moist, hothouse fragrance of the ferns rose from the deep places.