hat the
storekeeper at Coniston would be of use to him, politically? The words
Chester Perkins had spoken that morning came back to Wetherell as he
stood in the door. And how was he to meet Jethro Bass again with no
money to pay even the interest on the note? Then suddenly he missed
Cynthia, hurried out, and spied her under the trees on the common so
deep in conversation with a boy that she did not perceive him until he
spoke to her. The boy looked up, smiling frankly at something Cynthia
had said to him. He had honest, humorous eyes, and a browned, freckled
face, and was, perhaps, two years older than Cynthia.

"What's the matter?" said Wetherell.

Cynthia's face was flushed, and she was plainly vexed about something.

"I gave her a whistle," said the boy, with a little laugh of vexation,
"and now she says she won't take it because I owned up I made it for
another girl."

Cynthia held it out to him, not deigning to appeal her ease.

"You must take it back," she said.

"But I want you to have it," said the boy.

"It wouldn't be right for me to take it when you made it for somebody
else."

After all, people with consciences are born, not made. But this was a
finer distinction that the boy had ever met with in his experience.

"I didn't know you when I made the whistle," he objected, puzzled and
downcast.

"That doesn't make any difference."

"I like you better than the other girl."

"You have no right to," retorted the casuist; "you've known her longer."

"That doesn't make any difference," said the boy; "there are lots of
people I don't like I have always known. This girl doesn't live in
Brampton, anyway."

"Where does she live?" demanded Cynthia,--which was a step backward.

"At the state capital. Her name's Janet Duncan. There, do you believe me
now?"

William Wetherell had heard of Janet Duncan's father, Alexander Duncan,
who had the reputation of being the richest man in the state. And he
began to wonder who the boy could be.

"I believe you," said Cynthia; "but as long as you made it for her, it's
hers. Will you take it?"

"No," said he, determinedly.

"Very well," answered Cynthia. She laid down the whistle beside him on
the rail, and went off a little distance and seated herself on a bench.
The boy laughed.

"I like that girl," he remarked; "the rest of 'em take everything I give
'em, and ask for more. She's prettier'n any of 'em, too."

"What is your name?" Wetherell asked him, curiou