Jethro was not in the corridor, so they passed on to the dining room and looked eagerly from group to group.  Jethro was not there, either, but Cynthia heard some one laughing above the chatter of the guests, and drew back into the corridor.  She had spied the Duncans and the Worthingtons making merry by themselves at a corner table, and it was Somers’s laugh that she heard.  Bob, too, sitting next to Miss Duncan, was much amused about something.  Suddenly Cynthia’s exaltation over the incident of the morning seemed to leave her, and Bob Worthington’s words which she had pondered over in the night came back to her with renewed force.  He did not find it necessary to steal away to see Miss Duncan.  Why should he have “stolen away” to see her?  Was it because she was a country girl, and poor?  That was true; but on the other hand, did she not live in the sunlight, as it were, of Uncle Jethro’s greatness, and was it not an honor to come to his house and see any one?  And why had Mr. Worthington turned hid back on Jethro, and sent for Bob when he was talking to them?  Cynthia could not understand these things, and her pride was sorely wounded by them.

“Perhaps Jethro’s in his room,” suggested Ephraim.

And indeed they found him there seated on the bed, poring over some newspapers, and both in a breath demanded where he had been.  Ephraim did not wait for an answer.

“We seen General Grant, Jethro,” he cried; “while we was waitin’ for you under the tree he come up and stood talkin’ to us half an hour.  Full half an hour, wahn’t it, Cynthy?”

“Oh, yes,” answered Cynthia, forgetting her own grievance at the recollection; “only it didn’t seem nearly that long.”

“W-want to know!” exclaimed Jethro, in astonishment, putting down his paper.  “H-how did it happen?”

“Come right up and spoke to us,” said Ephraim, in a tone he might have used to describe a miracle, “jest as if he was common folk.  Never had a more sociable talk with anybody.  Why, there was times when I clean forgot he was President of the United States.  The boys won’t believe it when we git back at Coniston.”

And Ephraim, full of his subject, began to recount from the beginning the marvellous affair, occasionally appealing to Cynthia for confirmation.  How he had lived over again the Wilderness and Five Forks; how the General had changed since he had seen him whittling under a tree; how the General had asked about his pension.

“D-didn’t mention the post-office, did you, Ephraim?”

“Why, no,” replied Ephraim, “I didn’t like to exactly.  You see, we was havin’ such a good time I didn’t want to spoil it, but Cynthy—­”

“I told the President about it, Uncle Jethro; I told him how sick Cousin Eph had been, and that you were going to give him the postmastership because he couldn’t work any more with his hands.”

The training of a lifetime had schooled Jethro not to betray surprise.