the best girl to you in the world, and you know it. She's been as true
to you as Jackson has himself. She hasn't got a selfish bone in her
body, and she's so honest she couldn't design anything against you or
any one, unless she told you first. Now you take that back! Take it
back! She's no more designing than--than you are!"

Mrs. Durgin was not moved by his storming, but she was inwardly
convinced of error. "I do take it back. Cynthy is all right. She's all
you say and more. It's your fault, then, and you've got yourself to
thank, for whosever fault it is, she'll pack--"

"If Cynthy packs, I pack!" said Jeff. "Understand that. The moment she
leaves this house I leave it, too, and I'll marry her anyway. Frank 'd
leave and--and--Pshaw! What do you care for that? But I don't know what
you mean! I always thought you liked Cynthy and respected her. I didn't
believe I could tell you a thing that would please you better than that
she had said she would have me. But if it don't, all right."

Mrs. Durgin held her peace in bewilderment; she stared at her son with
dazed eyes, under the spectacles lifted above her forehead. She felt
a change of mood in his unchanged tone of defiance, and she met him
half-way. "I tell you I take back what I called Cynthia, and I told you
so. But--but I didn't ever expect you to marry her."

"Why didn't you? There isn't one of the summer folks to compare with
her. She's got more sense than all of 'em. I've known her ever since I
can remember. Why didn't you expect it?"

"I didn't expect it."

"Oh, I know! You thought I'd see somebody in Boston--some swell girl.
Well, they wouldn't any of them look at me, and if they would, they
wouldn't look at you."

"I shouldn't care whether they looked at me or not."

"I tell you they wouldn't look at me. You don't understand about these
things, and I do. They marry their own kind, and I'm not their kind,
and I shouldn't be if I was Daniel Webster himself. Daniel Webster! Who
remembers him, or cares for him, or ever did? You don't believe it? You
think that because I've been at Harvard--Oh, can't I make you see it?
I'm what they call a jay in Harvard, and Harvard don't count if you're a
jay."

His mother looked at him without speaking. She would not confess the
ambition he taxed her with, and perhaps she had nothing so definite
in her mind. Perhaps it was only her pride in him, and her faith in a
splendid future for him, that made her averse to his m