“You must not speak of dying, Wetherell,” said he, brokenly.  “Will you forgive me?”

“There is nothing to forgive, now that you have explained matters, Mr. Merrill” said the storekeeper, and he smiled again.  “If my fibre had been a little tougher, this thing would never have happened.  There is only one more request I have to make.  And that is, to assure Mr. Duncan, from me, that I did not detain him purposely.”

“I will see him on my way to Boston,” answered Mr. Merrill.

Then Cynthia was called.  She was waiting anxiously in the passage for the interview to be ended, and when she came in one glance at her father’s face told her that he was happier.  She, too, was happier.

“I wish you would come every day, Mr. Merrill” she said, when they descended into the garden after the three had talked awhile.  “It is the first time since he fell ill that he seems himself.”

Mr. Merrill’s answer was to take her hand and pat it.  He sat down on the millstone and drew a deep breath of that sparkling air and sighed, for his memory ran back to his own innocent boyhood in the New England country.  He talked to Cynthia until Jethro came.

“I have taken a fancy to this girl, Jethro,” said the little railroad president, “I believe I’ll steal her; a fellow can’t have too many of ’em, you know.  I’ll tell you one thing,—­you won’t keep her always shut up here in Coniston.  She’s much too good to waste on the desert air.”  Perhaps Mr. Merrill, too, had been thinking of the Elegy that morning.  “I don’t mean to run down Coniston it’s one of the most beautiful places I ever saw.  But seriously, Jethro, you and Wetherell ought to send her to school in Boston after a while.  She’s about the age of my girls, and she can live in my house:  Ain’t I right?”

“D-don’t know but what you be, Steve,” Jethro answered slowly.

“I am right,” declared Mr. Merrill “you’ll back me in this, I know it.  Why, she’s like your own daughter.  You remember what I say.  I mean it.—­What are you thinking about, Cynthia?”

“I couldn’t leave Dad and Uncle Jethro,” she said.

“Why, bless your soul,” said Mr. Merrill “bring Dad along.  We’ll find room for him.  And I guess Uncle Jethro will get to Boston twice a month if you’re there.”

And Mr. Merrill got into the buggy with Mr. Sherman and drove away to Brampton, thinking of many things.

“S-Steve’s a good man,” said Jethro.  “C-come up here from Brampton to see your father—­did he?”

“Yes,” answered Cynthia, “he is very kind.”  She was about to tell Jethro what a strange difference this visit had made in her father’s spirits, but some instinct kept her silent.  She knew that Jethro had never ceased to reproach himself for inviting Wetherell to the capital, and she was sure that something had happened there which had disturbed her father and brought on that fearful apathy.  But the apathy was dispelled now, and she shrank from giving Jethro pain by mentioning the fact.