Some ten days subsequent to this reconciliation Ellen, the parlor maid, brought up a card to Cynthia’s room.  The card bore the name of Mr. Robert Worthington.  Cynthia stared at it, and bent it in her fingers, while Ellen explained how the gentleman had begged that she might see him.  To tell the truth, Cynthia had wondered more than once why he had not come before, and smiled when she thought of all the assurances of undying devotion she had heard in Washington.  After all, she reflected, why should she not see him—­once?  He might give her news of Brampton and Coniston.  Thus willingly deceiving herself, she told Ellen that she would go down:  much to the girl’s delight, for Cynthia was a favorite in the house.

As she entered the parlor Mr. Worthington was standing in the window.  When he turned and saw her he started to come forward in his old impetuous way, and stopped and looked at her in surprise.  She herself did not grasp the reason for this.

“Can it be possible,” he said, “can it be possible that this is my friend from the country?” And he took her hand with the greatest formality, pressed it the least little bit, and released it.  “How do you do, Miss Wetherell?  Do you remember me?”

“How do you do—­Bob,” she answered, laughing in spite of herself at his banter.  “You haven’t changed, anyway.”

“It was Mr. Worthington in Washington,” said he.  “Now it is ‘Bob’ and ‘Miss Wetherell.’  Rank patronage!  How did you do it, Cynthia?”

“You are like all men,” said Cynthia, “you look at the clothes, and not the woman.  They are not very fine clothes; but if they were much finer, they wouldn’t change me.”

“Then it must be Miss Sadler.”

“Miss Sadler would willingly change me—­if she could,” said Cynthia, a little bitterly.  “How did you find out I was at Miss Sadler’s?”

“Morton Browne told me yesterday,” said Bob.  “I felt like punching his head.”

“What did he tell you?” she asked with some concern.

“He said that you were here, visiting the Merrills, among other things, and said that you knew me.”

The “other things” Mr. Browne had said were interesting, but flippant.  He had seen Bob at a college club and declared that he had met a witch of a country girl at the Merrills.  He couldn’t make her out, because she had refused to see him every time he called again.  He had also repeated Cynthia’s remark about Bob’s father not being quite the biggest man in his part of the country, and ventured the surmise that she was the daughter of a rival mill owner.

“Why didn’t you let me know you were in Boston?” said Bob, reproachfully.

“Why should I?” asked Cynthia, and she could not resist adding, “Didn’t you find it out when you went to Brampton—­to see me?”

“Well,” said he, getting fiery red, “the fact is—­I didn’t go to Brampton.”

“I’m glad you were sensible enough to take my advice, though I suppose that didn’t make any difference.  But—­from the way you spoke, I should have thought nothing could have kept you away.”