listen seriously. All of us have friends. Some people--you, for
instance--have a great many. We have but one father." Her voice failed
a little at the word. "No friend can ever be the same to you as your
father, and no friendship can make up what his displeasure will cost
you. I do not mean to say that I shan't always be your friend, for I
shall be."

Young men seldom arrive at maturity by gradual steps--something sets
them thinking, a week passes, and suddenly the world has a different
aspect. Bob had thought much of his father during that week, and had
considered their relationship very carefully. He had a few precious
memories of his mother before she had been laid to rest under that
hideous and pretentious monument in the Brampton hill cemetery. How
unlike her was that monument! Even as a young boy, when on occasions he
had wandered into the cemetery, he used to stand before it with a lump
in his throat and bitter resentment in his heart, and once he had shaken
his fist at it. He had grown up out of sympathy with his father, but he
had never until now began to analyze the reasons for it. His father had
given him everything except that communion of which Cynthia spoke so
feelingly. Mr. Worthington had acted according to his lights: of all the
people in the world he thought first of his son. But his thoughts and
care had been alone of what the son would be to the world: how that son
would carry on the wealth and greatness of Isaac D. Worthington.

Bob had known this before, but it had had no such significance for him
then as now. He was by no means lacking in shrewdness, and as he had
grown older he had perceived clearly enough Mr. Worthington's reasons
for throwing him socially with the Duncans. Mr. Worthington had never
been a plain-spoken man, but he had as much as told his son that it was
decreed that he should marry the heiress of the state. There were other
plans connected with this. Mr. Worthington meant that his son should
eventually own the state itself, for he saw that the man who controlled
the highways of a state could snap his fingers at governor and council
and legislature and judiciary: could, indeed, do more--could own them
even more completely than Jethro Bass now owned them, and without
effort. The dividends would do the work: would canvass the counties and
persuade this man and that with sufficient eloquence. By such tokens
it will be seen that Isaac D. Worthington is destined to become great,
thou