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said Cynthia.
"Why didn't you stop?"
"I didn't want to," said Cynthia, glancing at the distant group on the porch, who were watching them. Suddenly she turned to him defiantly. "I didn't know you were in that house, or in the capital," she said.
"And I didn't know you were," said Bob, upon whose masculine intelligence the meaning of her words was entirely lost. "If I had known it, you can bet I would have looked you up. Where are you staying?"
"At the Pelican House."
"What!" said Bob, "with all the politicians? How did you happen to go there?"
"Mr. Bass asked my father and me to come down for a few days," answered Cynthia, her color heightening again. Life is full of contrasts, and Cynthia was becoming aware of some of them.
"Uncle Jethro?" said Bob.
"Yes, Uncle Jethro," said Cynthia, smiling in spite of herself. He always made her smile.
"Uncle Jethro owns the Pelican House," said Bob.
"Does he? I knew he was a great man, but I didn't know how great he was until I came down here."
Cynthia said this so innocently that Bob repented his flippancy on the spot. He had heard occasional remarks of his elders about Jethro.
"I didn't mean quite that," he said, growing red in his turn. "Uncle Jethro--Mr. Bass--is a great man of course. That's what I meant."
"And he's a very good man," said Cynthia, who understood now that he had spoken a little lightly of Jethro, and resented it.
"I'm sure of it," said Bob, eagerly. Then Cynthia began to walk on, slowly, and he followed her on the other side of the fence. "Hold on," he cried, "I haven't said half the things I want to say--yet."
"What do you want to say?" asked Cynthia, still walking. "I have to go."
"Oh, no, you don't! Wait just a minute--won't you?"
Cynthia halted, with apparent unwillingness, and put out her toe between the pickets. Then she saw that there was a little patch on that toe, and drew it in again.
"What do you want to say?" she repeated. "I don't believe you have anything to say at all." And suddenly she flashed a look at him that made his heart thump.
"I do--I swear I do!" he protested. "I'm coming down to the Pelican to-morrow morning to get you to go for a walk."
Cynthia could not but think that the remoteness of the time he set was scarce in keeping with his ardent tone.
"I have something else to do to-morrow morning," she answered.
"Then I'll come to-morrow afternoon," said Bob, instantly.
"Who lives here?" she asked irrelevantly.
"Mr. Duncan. I'm visiting the Duncans."
At this moment a carryall joined the carriage at the gate. Cynthia glanced at the porch again. The group there had gown larger, and they were still staring. She began to feel uncomfortable again, and moved on slowly.
"Mayn't I come?" asked Bob, going after her; and scraping the butt of the rod along the palings.
"Aren't there enough girls here to satisfy you?" asked Cynthia.
"They're enough--yes," he said, "but none of 'em could hold a candle to you."
Cynthia laughed outright.
"I believe you tell them all something like that," she said.
"I don't do any such thing," he retorted, and then he laughed himself, and Cynthia laughed again.
"I like you because you don't swallow everything whole," said Bob, "and--well, for a good many other reams." And he looked into her face with such frank admiration that Cynthia blushed and turned away.
"I don't believe a word you say," she answered, and started to walk off, this time in earnest.
"Hold on," cried Bob. They were almost at the end of the fence by this, and the pickets were sharp and rather high, or he would have climbed them.
Cynthia paused hesitatingly.
"I'll come at two o'clock to-morrow," said he; "We're going on a picnic to-day, to Dalton's Bend, on the river. I wish I could get out of it."
Just then there came a voice from the gateway.
"Bob! Bob Worthington!"
They both turned involuntarily. A slender girl with light brown hair was standing there, waving at him.
"Who's that?" asked Cynthia.
"That?" said Bob, in some confusion, "oh, that's Janet Duncan."
"Good-by," said Cynthia.
"I'm coming to-morrow," he called after her, but she did not turn. In a little while she heard the carryall behind her clattering down the street, its passengers laughing and joking merrily. Her face burned, for she thought that they were laughing at her; she wished with all her heart that she had not stopped to talk with him at the palings. The girls, indeed, were giggling as the carryall passed, and she heard somebody call out his name, but nevertheless he leaned out of the seat and waved his hat at her, amid a shout of laughter. Poor Cynthia! She did not look at him. Tears of vexation were in her eyes, and the light of her joy at this visit to the capital flickered, and she wished she were back in Coniston. She thought it would be very nice to be rich, and to live in a great house in a city, and to go on picnics.
The light flickered, but it did not wholly go out. If it has not been shown that Cynthia was endowed with a fair amount of sense, many of these pages have been written in vain. She sat down for a while in the park and thought of the many things she had to be thankful for--not the least of which was Jethro's kindness. And she remembered that she was to see "Uncle Tom's Cabin" that evening.
Such are the joys and sorrows of fifteen!
CHAPTER XV
Mr. Amos Cuthbert named it so--our old friend Amos who lives high up in the ether of Town's End ridge, and who now represents Coniston in the Legislature. He is the same silent, sallow person as when Jethro first took a mortgage on his farm, only his skin is beginning to resemble dried parchment, and he is a trifle more cantankerous. On the morning of that memorable day when, "Uncle Tom's Cabin" came to the capital, Amos had entered the Throne Room and given vent to his feelings in regard to the gentleman in the back seat who had demanded an evening sitting on behalf of the farmers.
"Don't that beat all?" cried Amos. "Let them have their darned woodchuck session; there won't nobody go to it. For cussed, crisscross contrariness, give me a moss-back Democrat from a one-boss, one-man town like Suffolk. I'm a-goin' to see the show."
"G-goin' to the show, be you, Amos?" said Jethro.
"Yes, I be," answered Amos, bitterly. "I hain't agoin' nigh the house to-night." And with this declaration he departed.
"I wonder if he really is going?" queried Mr. Merrill looking at the ceiling. And then he laughed.
"Why shouldn't he go?" asked William Wetherell.
Mr. Merrill's answer to this question was a wink, whereupon he, too, departed. And while Wetherell