tribute
alone to the Great Man of Coniston.

Mr. Sutton was one who would make himself felt even in the capital of
the United States--felt and heard. And he had not been long in the Halls
of Congress before he made a speech which rang under the very dome of
the Capitol. So said the Brampton and Harwich papers, at least, though
rivals and detractors of Mr. Sutton declared that they could find no
matter in it which related to the subject of a bill, but that is
neither here nor there. The oration began with a lengthy tribute to the
resources and history of his state, and ended by a declaration that the
speaker was in Congress at no man's bidding, but as the servant of the
common people of his district.

Under the lamp of the little parlor in the tannery house, Cynthia (who
has now arrived at the very serious age of nineteen) was reading the
papers to Jethro and came upon Mr. Sutton's speech. There were four
columns of it, but Jethro seemed to take delight in every word; and
portions of the noblest parts of it, indeed, he had Cynthia read over
again. Sometimes, in the privacy of his home, Jethro was known to
chuckle, and to Cynthia's surprise he chuckled more than usual that
evening.

"Uncle Jethro," she said at length, when she had laid the paper down, "I
thought that you sent Mr. Sutton to Congress."

Jethro leaned forward.

"What put that into your head, Cynthy?" he asked.

"Oh," answered the girl, "everybody says so,--Moses Hatch, Rias, and
Cousin Eph. Didn't you?"

Jethro looked at her, as she thought, strangely.

"You're too young to know anything about such things, Cynthy," he said,
"too young."

"But you make all the judges and senators and congressmen in the state,
I know you do. Why," exclaimed Cynthia, indignantly, "why does Mr.
Sutton say the people elected him when he owes everything to you?"

Jethro, arose abruptly and flung a piece of wood into the stove, and
then he stood with his back to her. Her instinct told her that he was
suffering, though she could not fathom the cause, and she rose swiftly
and drew him down into the chair beside her.

"What is it?" she said anxiously. "Have you got rheumatism, too, like
Cousin Eph? All old men seem to have rheumatism."

"No, Cynthy, it hain't rheumatism," he managed to answer; "wimmen folks
hadn't ought to mix up in politics. They--they don't understand 'em,
Cynthy."

"But I shall understand them some day, because I am your daughter--now
that--now t