es and children playing in the paths. It
seemed a long time since she had left the hills, and this glimpse of
cities had given her many things to think and dream about. Would she
always live in Coniston? Or was her future to be cast among those who
moved in the world and helped to sway it? Cynthia felt that she was to be
of these, though she could not reason why, and she told herself that the
feeling was foolish. Perhaps it was that she knew in the bottom of her
heart that she had been given a spirit and intelligence to cope with a
larger life than that of Coniston. With a sense that such imaginings were
vain, she tried to think what the would do if she were to become a great
lady like Mrs. Duncan.

She was aroused from these reflections by a distant glimpse, through the
trees, of Mr. Robert Worthington. He was standing quite alone on the edge
of the park, his hands in his pockets, staring at the White House.
Cynthia half rose, and then sat down and looked at him again. He wore a
light gray, loose-fitting suit and a straw hat, and she could not but
acknowledge that there was something stalwart and clean and altogether
appealing in him. She wondered, indeed, why he now failed to appeal to
Miss Duncan, and she began to doubt the sincerity of that young lady's
statements. Bob certainly was not romantic, but he was a man--or would be
very soon.

Cynthia sat still, although her impulse was to go away. She scarcely
analyzed her feeling of wishing to avoid him. It may not be well, indeed,
to analyze them on paper too closely. She had an instinct that only pain
could come from frequent meetings, and she knew now what but a week ago
was a surmise, that he belonged to the world of which she had been
dreaming--Mrs. Duncan's world. Again, there was that mysterious barrier
between them of which she had seen so many evidences. And yet she sat
still on her bench and looked at him.

Presently he turned, slowly, as if her eyes had compelled his. She sat
still--it was too late, then. In less than a minute he was standing
beside her, looking down at her with a smile that had in it a touch of
reproach.

"How do you do, Mr. Worthington?" said Cynthia, quietly.

"Mr. Worthington!" he cried, "you haven't called me that before. We are
not children any more," she said.

"What difference does that make?"

"A great deal," said Cynthia, not caring to define it.

"Cynthia," said Mr. Worthington, sitting down on the beach and facing
her, "