ar road to Coniston just as the sun was
dipping behind the south end of the mountain.

"They'll be surprised some, and disappointed some," said Lem, cheerily;
"they was kind of plannin' a little celebration when you come back,
Will--you and Cynthy. Amandy Hatch was a-goin' to bake a cake, and the
minister was callatin' to say some word of welcome. Wahn't goin' to
be anything grand--jest homelike. But you was right to come if you was
tuckered. I guess Cynthy fetched you. Rias he kep' store and done it
well,--brisker'n I ever see him, Rias was. Wait till I put some of them
things back, and make you more comfortable, Will."

He moved a few parcels and packages from Wetherell's feet and glanced at
Cynthia as he did so. The mountain cast its vast blue shadow over forest
and pasture, and above the pines the white mist was rising from Coniston
Water--rising in strange shapes. Lem's voice seemed to William Wetherell
to have given way to a world-wide silence, in the midst of which he
sought vainly for Cynthia and the stage driver. Most extraordinary of
all, out of the silence and the void came the checker-paned windows
of the store at Coniston, then the store itself, with the great oaks
bending over it, then the dear familiar faces,--Moses and Amandy, Eph
Prescott limping toward them, and little Rias Richardson in an apron
with a scoop shovel in his hand, and many others. They were not smiling
at the storekeeper's return--they looked very grave. Then somebody
lifted him tenderly from the stage and said:--

"Don't you worry a mite, Cynthy. Jest tuckered, that's all."

William Wetherell was "just tuckered." The great Dr. Coles, authority
on pulmonary troubles, who came all the way from Boston, could give no
better verdict than that. It was Jethro Bass who had induced Dr. Coles
to come to Coniston--much against the great man's inclination, and to
the detriment of his patients: Jethro who, on receiving Cynthia's note,
had left the capital on the next train and had come to Coniston, and had
at once gone to Boston for the specialist.

"I do not know why I came," said the famous physician to Dr. Abraham
Rowell of Tarleton, "I never shall know. There is something about
that man Jethro Bass which compels you to do his will. He has a most
extraordinary personality. Is this storekeeper a great friend of his?"

"The only intimate friend he had in the world," answered Dr. Rowell;
"none of us could ever understand it. And as for the girl