“If they are,” she continued, “I won’t speak to them again.  If they can’t treat me as—­as your daughter ought to be treated, I’ll turn my back on them.  I am—­I am just like your daughter—­am I not, Uncle Jethro?”

He put out his hand and seized hers roughly, and his voice was thick with suffering.

“Yes, Cynthy,” he said, “you—­you’re all I’ve got in the world.”

She squeezed his hand in return.

“I know it, Uncle Jethro,” she cried contritely, “I oughtn’t to have troubled you by asking.  You—­you have done everything for me, much more than I deserve.  And I shan’t be hurt after this when people are too small to appreciate how good you are, and how great.”

The pain tightened about Jethro’s heart—­tightened so sharply that he could not speak, and scarcely breathe because of it.  Cynthia picked up her novel, and set the bookmark.

“Now that Cousin Eph is provided for, let’s go back to Coniston, Uncle Jethro.”  A sudden longing was upon her for the peaceful life in the shelter of the great ridge, and she thought of the village maples all red and gold with the magic touch of the frosts.  “Not that I haven’t enjoyed my trip,” she added; “but we are so happy there.”

He did not look at her, because he was afraid to.

“C-Cynthy,” he said, after a little pause, “th-thought we’d go to Boston.”

“Boston, Uncle Jethro!”

“Er—­to-morrow—­at one—­to-morrow—­like to go to Boston?”

“Yes,” she said thoughtfully, “I remember parts of it.  The Common, where I used to walk with Daddy, and the funny old streets that went uphill.  It will be nice to go back to Coniston that way—­over Truro Pass in the train.”

That night a piece of news flashed over the wires to New England, and the next morning a small item appeared in the Newcastle Guardian to the effect that one Ephraim Prescott had bean appointed postmaster at Brampton.  Copied in the local papers of the state, it caused some surprise in Brampton, to be sure, and excitement in Coniston.  Perhaps there were but a dozen men, however, who saw its real significance, who knew through this item that Jethro Bass was still supreme—­that the railroads had failed to carry this first position in their war against him.

It was with a light heart the next morning that Cynthia, packed the little leather trunk which had been her father’s.  Ephraim was in the corridor regaling his friend, Mr. Beard, with that wonderful encounter with General Grant which sounded so much like a Fifth Reader anecdote of a chance meeting with royalty.  Jethro’s room was full of visiting politicians.  So Cynthia, when she had finished her packing, went out to walk about the streets alone, scanning the people who passed her, looking at the big houses, and wondering who lived in them.  Presently she found herself, in the middle of the morning, seated on a bench in a little park, surrounded by colored mammies and children playing in the paths.  It