“Yes, I’ve accepted him,” said the girl, with a sigh.  “I guess I’ve always expected to.”

“Well, I thought likely it would come to that, myself.  All I can say, Cynthy, is ’t he’s a lucky feller.”

Whitwell leaned back, bracing his knees against the table, which was one of his philosophic poses.  “I have sometimes believed that Jeff Durgin was goin’ to turn out a blackguard.  He’s got it in him.  He’s as like his gran’father as two peas, and he was an old devil.  But you got to account in all these here heredity cases for counteractin’ influences.  The Durgins are as good as wheat, right along, all of ’em; and I guess Mis’ Durgin’s mother must have been a pretty good woman too.  Mis’ Durgin’s all right, too, if she has got a will of her own.”  Whitwell returned from his scientific inquiry to ask:  “How ’ll she take it?”

“I don’t know,” said Cynthia, dreamily, but without apparent misgiving.  “That’s Jeff’s lookout.”

“So ’tis.  I guess she won’t make much fuss.  A woman never likes to see her son get married; but you’ve been a kind of daughter to her so long.  Well, I guess that part of it ’ll be all right.  Jackson,” said Whitwell, in a tone of relief, as if turning from an irrelevant matter to something of real importance, “was down here to-night tryin’ to ring up some them spirits from the planet Mars.  Martians, he calls ’em.  His mind’s got to runnin’ a good deal on Mars lately.  I guess it’s this apposition that they talk about that does it.  Mars comin’ so much nearer the earth by a million of miles or so, it stands to reason that he should be more influenced by the minds on it.  I guess it’s a case o’ that telepathy that Mr. Westover tells about.  I judge that if he kept at it before Mars gits off too far again he might make something out of it.  I couldn’t seem to find much sense in what plantchette done to-night; we couldn’t either of us; but she has her spells when you can’t make head or tail of her.  But mebbe she’s just leadin’ up to something, the way she did about that broken shaft when Jeff come home.  We ha’n’t ever made out exactly what she meant by that yet.”

Whitwell paused, and Cynthia seized the advantage of his getting round to Jeff again.  “He wanted to give up going to Harvard this last year, but I wouldn’t let him.”

“Jeff did?” asked her father.  “Well, you done a good thing that time, anyway, Cynthy.  His mother ’d never get over it.”

“There’s something else she’s got to get over, and I don’t know how she ever will.  He’s going to give up the law.”

“Give up the law!”

“Yes.  Don’t tease, father!  He says he’s never cared about it, and he wants to keep a hotel.  I thought that I’d ought to tell him how we felt about Jackson’s having a rest and going off somewhere; and he wanted to begin at once.  But I said if he left off the last year at Harvard I wouldn’t have anything to do with him.”