Jeff told, as nearly as he could remember, and he told what Cynthia and he had afterward jointly worked out as to the best thing for Jackson to do.  Mrs. Durgin listened frowningly, but not disapprovingly, as it seemed; though at the end she asked:  “And what am I going to do, with Jackson gone?”

Jeff laughed, with his head down.  “Well, I guess you and Cynthy could run it, with Frank and Mr. Whitwell.”

“Mr. Whit’ell!” said Mrs. Durgin, concentrating in her accent of his name the contempt she could not justly pour out on the others.

“Oh,” Jeff went on, “I did think that I could take hold with you, if you could bring yourself to let me off this last year at Harvard.”

“Jeff!” said his mother, reproachfully.  “You know you don’t mean that you’d give up your last year in college?”

“I do mean it, but I don’t expect you to do it; and I don’t ask it.  I suggested it to Cynthy, when we got to talking it over, and she saw it wouldn’t do.”

“Well, she showed some sense that time,” Mrs. Durgin said.

“I don’t know when Cynthy hasn’t shown sense; except once, and then I guess it was my fault.”

“What do you mean?”

“Why, this afternoon I asked her to marry me some time, and she said she would.”  He looked at his mother and laughed, and then he did not laugh.  He had expected her to be pleased; he had thought to pave the way with this confession for the declaration of his intention not to study law, and to make his engagement to Cynthia serve him in reconciling his mother to the other fact.  But a menacing suspense followed his words.

His mother broke out at last:  “You asked Cynthy Whit’ell to marry you!  And she said she would!  Well, I can tell her she won’t, then!”

“And I can tell you she will!” Jeff stormed back.  He rose to his feet and stood over his mother.

She began steadily, as if he had not spoken.  “If that designin’—­”

“Look out, mother!  Don’t you say anything against Cynthia!  She’s been the best girl to you in the world, and you know it.  She’s been as true to you as Jackson has himself.  She hasn’t got a selfish bone in her body, and she’s so honest she couldn’t design anything against you or any one, unless she told you first.  Now you take that back!  Take it back!  She’s no more designing than—­than you are!”

Mrs. Durgin was not moved by his storming, but she was inwardly convinced of error.  “I do take it back.  Cynthy is all right.  She’s all you say and more.  It’s your fault, then, and you’ve got yourself to thank, for whosever fault it is, she’ll pack—­”

“If Cynthy packs, I pack!” said Jeff.  “Understand that.  The moment she leaves this house I leave it, too, and I’ll marry her anyway.  Frank ’d leave and—­and—­Pshaw!  What do you care for that?  But I don’t know what you mean!  I always thought you liked Cynthy and respected her.  I didn’t believe I could tell you a thing that would please you better than that she had said she would have me.  But if it don’t, all right.”