There was a decided stir among the audience, and many leaned forward to catch every word.

“Even old people may have an ideal,” said Miss Lucretia, “and you will forgive me for speaking of mine.  Where should I speak of it, if not in this village, among those who knew her and among their children?  Cynthia Ware, although she was younger than I, has been my ideal, and is still.  She was the daughter of the Rev. Samuel Ware of Coniston, and a descendant of Captain Timothy Prescott, whom General Stark called ’Honest Tim.’  She was, to me, all that a woman should be, in intellect, in her scorn of all that is ignoble and false, and in her loyalty to her friends.”  Here the handkerchief came out of the reticule.  “She went to Boston to teach school, and some time afterward I was offered a position in New York, and I never saw her again.  But she married in Boston a man of learning and literary attainments, though his health was feeble and he was poor, William Wetherell.” (Another stir.) “Mr. Wetherell was a gentleman—­Cynthia Ware could have married no other—­and he came of good and honorable people in Portsmouth.  Very recently I read a collection of letters which he wrote to the Newcastle Guardian, which some of you may know.  I did not trust my own judgment as to those letters, but I took them to an author whose name is known wherever English is spoken, but which I will not mention.  And the author expressed it as his opinion, in writing to me, that William Wetherell was undoubtedly a genius of a high order, and that he would have been so recognized if life had given him a chance.  Mr. Wetherell, after his wife died, was taken in a dying condition to Coniston, where he was forced, in order to earn his living, to become the storekeeper there.  But he took his books with him, and found time to write the letters of which I have spoken, and to give his daughter an early education such as few girls have.

“My friends, I am rejoiced to see that the spirit of justice and the sense of right are as strong in Brampton as they used to be—­strong enough to fill this town hall to overflowing because a teacher has been wrongly—­yes, and iniquitously—­dismissed from the lower school.” (Here there was a considerable stir, and many wondered whether Miss Lucretia was aware of the irony in her words.) “I say wrongly and iniquitously, because I have had the opportunity in Boston this winter of learning to know and love that teacher.  I am not given to exaggeration, my friends, and when I tell you that I know her, that her character is as high and pure as her mother’s, I can say no more.  I am here to tell you this to-night because I do not believe you know her as I do.  During the seventy years I have lived I have grown to have but little faith in outward demonstration, to believe in deeds and attainments rather than expressions.  And as for her fitness to teach, I believe that even the prudential committee could find no fault with that.” (I wonder whether Mr. Dodd was in the back of the hall.) “I can find no fault with it.  I am constantly called upon to recommend teachers, and I tell you I should have no hesitation in sending Cynthia Wetherell to a high school, young as she is.”