a loved him--yet, but he had the effrontery to believe
that she might, some day; and he was content to wait. He saw that she
avoided him, and he was too proud to go to the parsonage and so incur
ridicule and contempt.

Jethro was content to wait. That is a clew to his character throughout
his life. He would wait for his love, he would wait for his hate: he had
waited ten years before putting into practice the first step of a little
scheme which he had been gradually developing during that time, for
which he had been amassing money, and the life of Napoleon Bonaparte, by
the way, had given him some valuable ideas. Jethro, as well as Isaac
D. Worthington, had ambitions, although no one in Coniston had hitherto
guessed them except Jock Hallowell--and Cynthia Ware, after her
curiosity had been aroused.

Even as Isaac D. Worthington did not dream of the Truro Railroad and of
an era in the haze of futurity, it did not occur to Jethro Bass that his
ambitions tended to the making of another era that was at hand. Makers
of eras are too busy thinking about themselves and like immediate
matters to worry about history. Jethro never heard the expression
about "cracks in the Constitution," and would not have known what it
meant,--he merely had the desire to get on top. But with Established
Church Coniston tight in the saddle (in the person of Moses Hatch,
Senior), how was he to do it?

As the winter wore on, and March town meeting approached, strange rumors
of a Democratic ticket began to drift into Jonah Winch's store,--a
Democratic ticket headed by Fletcher Bartlett, of all men, as chairman
of the board. Moses laughed when he first heard of it, for Fletcher was
an easy-going farmer of the Methodist persuasion who was always in debt,
and the other members of the ticket, so far as Moses could learn of
it--were remarkable neither for orthodoxy or solidity. The rumors
persisted, and still Moses laughed, for the senior selectman was a big
man with flesh on him, who could laugh with dignity.

"Moses," said Deacon Lysander Richardson as they stood on the platform
of the store one sunny Saturday in February, "somebody's put Fletcher
up to this. He hain't got sense enough to act that independent all by
himself."

"You be always croakin', Lysander," answered Moses.

Cynthia Ware, who had come to the store for buttons for Speedy Bates,
who was making a new coat for the minister, heard these remarks, and
stood thoughtfully staring at th