“That man, Judge Baker, holding court in this town now, Bass owns body and soul.”

“And the horse blanket?” Wetherell queried, irresistibly.

Dudley Worthington did not smile.

“Take my advice, Mr. Wetherell, and pay off that note somehow.”  An odor of the stable pervaded the room, and a great unkempt grizzled head and shoulders, horse blanket and all, were stuck into it.

“Mornin’, Dudley,” said the head, “busy?”

“Come right in, Judge,” answered Mr. Worthington.  “Never too busy to see you.”  The head disappeared.

“Take my advice, Mr. Wetherell.”

And then the storekeeper went into the bank.

For some moments he stood dazed by what he had heard, the query ringing in his head:  Why had Jethro Bass bought that note?  Did he think that the storekeeper at Coniston would be of use to him, politically?  The words Chester Perkins had spoken that morning came back to Wetherell as he stood in the door.  And how was he to meet Jethro Bass again with no money to pay even the interest on the note?  Then suddenly he missed Cynthia, hurried out, and spied her under the trees on the common so deep in conversation with a boy that she did not perceive him until he spoke to her.  The boy looked up, smiling frankly at something Cynthia had said to him.  He had honest, humorous eyes, and a browned, freckled face, and was, perhaps, two years older than Cynthia.

“What’s the matter?” said Wetherell.

Cynthia’s face was flushed, and she was plainly vexed about something.

“I gave her a whistle,” said the boy, with a little laugh of vexation, “and now she says she won’t take it because I owned up I made it for another girl.”

Cynthia held it out to him, not deigning to appeal her ease.

“You must take it back,” she said.

“But I want you to have it,” said the boy.

“It wouldn’t be right for me to take it when you made it for somebody else.”

After all, people with consciences are born, not made.  But this was a finer distinction that the boy had ever met with in his experience.

“I didn’t know you when I made the whistle,” he objected, puzzled and downcast.

“That doesn’t make any difference.”

“I like you better than the other girl.”

“You have no right to,” retorted the casuist; “you’ve known her longer.”

“That doesn’t make any difference,” said the boy; “there are lots of people I don’t like I have always known.  This girl doesn’t live in Brampton, anyway.”

“Where does she live?” demanded Cynthia,—­which was a step backward.

“At the state capital.  Her name’s Janet Duncan.  There, do you believe me now?”

William Wetherell had heard of Janet Duncan’s father, Alexander Duncan, who had the reputation of being the richest man in the state.  And he began to wonder who the boy could be.

“I believe you,” said Cynthia; “but as long as you made it for her, it’s hers.  Will you take it?”