er--pioneer of summer
visitors there--spent at Coniston. He was an unsuccessful painter, who
became, by a process which he himself does not to-day completely
understand, a successful writer of novels. As a character, however, he
himself confesses his inadequacy, and the chief interest in him for the
readers of this narrative is that he fell deeply in love with Cynthia
Wetherell at nineteen. It is fair to mention in passing that other young
men were in love with Cynthia at this time, notably Eben Hatch--history
repeating itself. Once, in a moment of madness, Eben confessed his love,
the painter never did: and he has to this day a delicious memory which
has made Cynthia the heroine of many of his stories. He boarded with
Chester Perkins, and he was humored by the village as a harmless but
amiable lunatic.

The painter had never conceived that a New England conscience and a
temper of no mean proportions could dwell together in the body of a wood
nymph. When he had first seen Cynthia among the willows by Coniston
Water, he had thought her a wood nymph. But she scolded him for his
impropriety with so unerring a choice of words that he fell in love with
her intellect, too. He spent much of his time to the neglect of his
canvases under the butternut tree in front of Jethro's house trying to
persuade Cynthia to sit for her portrait; and if Jethro himself had not
overheard one of these arguments, the portrait never would have been
painted. Jethro focussed a look upon the painter.

"Er--painter-man, be you? Paint Cynthy's picture?"

"But I don't want to be painted, Uncle Jethro. I won't be painted!"

"H-how much for a good picture? Er--only want the best--only want the
best."

The painter said a few things, with pardonable heat, to the effect--well,
never mind the effect. His remarks made no impression whatever upon
Jethro.

"Er---paint the picture--paint the picture, and then we'll talk about the
price. Er--wait a minute."

He went into the house, and they heard him lumbering up the stairs.
Cynthia sat with her back to the artist, pretending to read, but
presently she turned to him.

"I'll never forgive you--never, as long as I live," she cried, "and I
won't be painted!"

"N-not to please me, Cynthy?" It was Jethro's voice.

Her look softened. She laid down the book and went up to him on the porch
and put her hand on his shoulder.

"Do you really want it so much as all that, Uncle Jethro?" she said.

"Callate I d