ad called on Cynthia. The girls had
discussed the event excitedly, had teased Cynthia about it; they had
discovered, moreover, that the young man had not been a tiller of the
soil or a clerk in a country store. Ellen, with the enthusiasm of her
race, had painted him in glowing colors--but she had neglected to read
the name on his card.

"Bob Worthington came to see me last week, and he wants to come again. He
lives in Brampton," Cynthia explained, "and is at Harvard College."

Mrs. Merrill was decidedly surprised. She went on with her sewing,
however, and did not betray the fact. She knew of Dudley Worthington as
one of the richest and most important men in his state; she had heard her
husband speak of him often; but she had never meddled with politics and
railroad affairs.

"By all means let him come, Cynthia," she replied.

When Mr. Merrill got home that evening she spoke of the matter to him.

"Cynthia is a strange character," she said. "Sometimes I can't understand
her--she seems so much older than our girls, Stephen. Think of her
keeping this to herself for four days!"

Mr. Merrill laughed, but he went off to a little writing room he had and
sat for a long time looking into the glowing coals. Then he laughed
again. Mr. Merrill was a philosopher. After all, he could not forbid
Dudley Worthington's son coming to his house, nor did he wish to.

That same evening Cynthia wrote a letter and posted it. She found it a
very difficult letter to write, and almost as difficult to drop into the
mail-box. She reflected that the holidays were close at hand, and then he
would go to Brampton and forget, even as he had forgotten before. And she
determined when Wednesday afternoon came around that she would take a
long walk in the direction of Brookline. Cynthia loved these walks, for
she sadly missed the country air,--and they had kept the color in her
cheeks and the courage in her heart that winter. She had amazed the
Merrill girls by the distances she covered, and on more than one occasion
she had trudged many miles to a spot from which there was a view of Blue
Hills. They reminded her faintly of Coniston.

Who can speak or write with any certainty of the feminine character, or
declare what unexpected twists perversity and curiosity may give to it?
Wednesday afternoon came, and Cynthia did not go to Brookline. She put on
her coat, and took it off again. Would he dare to come in the face of the
mandate he had received? If