Lucretia Penniman!" Cynthia began to think his rheumatism was driving him out of his mind.
"You bet. 'Long toward the openin' of the engagement there wahn't scarcely anybody thar but me, and they was a-goin'. But they come fast enough when they l'arned she was in town, and she blew 'em up higher'n the Petersburg crater. Great Tecumseh, there's a woman! Next to General Grant, I'd sooner shake her hand than anybody's livin'."
"Do you mean to say that Miss Lucretia is in Brampton and spoke at the mass meeting?"
"Spoke!" exclaimed Ephraim, "callate she did--some. Tore 'em all up. They'd a hung Isaac D. Worthington or Levi Dodd if they'd a had 'em thar."
Cynthia, striving to be calm herself, got him into a chair and took his stick and straightened out his leg, and then Ephraim told her the story, and it lost no dramatic effect in his telling. He would have talked all night. But at length the sound of wheels was heard in the street, Cynthia flew to the door, and a familiar voice came out of the darkness.
"You need not wait, Gamaliel. No, thank you, I think I will stay at the hotel."
Gamaliel was still protesting when Miss Lucretia came in and seized Cynthia in her arms, and the door was closed behind her.
"Oh, Miss Lucretia, why did you come?" said Cynthia, "if I had known you would do such a thing, I should never have written that letter. I have been sorry to-day that I did write it, and now I'm sorrier than ever."
"Aren't you glad to see me?" demanded Miss Lucretia.
"Miss Lucretia!"
"What are friends for?" asked Miss Lucretia, patting her hand. "If you had known how I wished to see you, Cynthia, and I thought a little trip would be good for such a provincial Bostonian as I am. Dear, dear, I remember this house. It used to belong to Gabriel Post in my time, and right across from it was the Social Library, where I have spent so many pleasant hours with your mother. And this is Ephraim Prescott. I thought it was, when I saw him sitting in the front row, and I think he must have been very lonesome there at one time."
"Yes, ma'am," said Ephraim, giving her his gnarled fingers; "I was just sayin' to Cynthy that I'd ruther shake your hand than anybody's livin' exceptin' General Grant."
"And I'd rather shake yours than the General's," said Miss Lucretia, for the Woman's Hour had taken the opposition side in a certain recent public question concerning women.
"If you'd a fit with him, you wouldn't say that, Miss Lucrety."
"I haven't a word to say against his fighting qualities," she replied.
"Guess the General might say the same of you," said Ephraim. "If you'd a b'en a man, I callate you'd a come out of the war with two stars on your shoulder. Godfrey, Miss Lucrety, you'd ought to've b'en a man."
"A man!" cried Miss Lucretia, "and 'stars on my shoulder'! I think this kind of talk has gone far enough, Ephraim Prescott."
"Cousin Eph," said Cynthia, laughing, "you're no match for Miss Lucretia, and it's long past your bedtime."
"A man!" repeated Miss Lucretia, after he had retired, and after Cynthia had tried to express her gratitude and had been silenced. They sat side by side in front of the chimney. "I suppose he meant that as a compliment. I never yet saw the man I couldn't back down, and I haven't any patience with a woman who gives in to them." Miss Lucretia poked vigorously a log which had fallen down, as though that were a man, too, and she was putting him back in his proper place.
Cynthia, strange to say, did not reply to this remark.
"Cynthia," said Miss Lucretia, abruptly, "you don't mean to say that you are in love!"
Cynthia drew a long breath, and grew as red as the embers.
"Miss Lucretia!" she exclaimed, in astonishment and dismay.
"Well," Miss Lucretia said, "I should have thought you could have gotten along, for a while at least, without anything of that kind. My dear," she said leaning toward Cynthia, "who is he?"
Cynthia turned away. She found it very hard to speak of her troubles, even to Miss Lucretia, and she would have kept this secret even from Jethro, had it been possible.
"You must let him know his place," said Miss Lucretia, "and I hope he is in some degree worthy of you."
"I do not intend to marry him," said Cynthia, with head still turned away.
It was now Miss Lucretia who was silent.
"I came near getting married once," she said presently, with characteristic abruptness.
"You!" cried Cynthia, looking around in amazement.
"You see, I am franker than you, my dear--though I never told any one else. I believe you can keep a secret."
"Of course I can. Who--was it anyone in Brampton, Miss Lucretia?" The question was out before Cynthia realized its import. She was turning the tables with a vengeance.
"It was Ezra Graves," said Miss Lucretia.
"Ezra Graves!" And then Cynthia pressed Miss Lucretia's hand in silence, thinking how strange it was that both of them should have been her champions that evening.
Miss Lucretia poked the fire again.
"It was shortly after that, when I went to Boston, that I wrote the 'Hymn to Coniston.' I suppose we must all be fools once or twice, or we should not be human."
"And--weren't you ever--sorry?" asked Cynthia.
Again there was a silence.
"I could not have done the work I have had to do in the world if I had married. But I have often wondered whether that work was worth the while. Such a feeling must come over all workers, occasionally. Yes," said Miss Lucretia, "there have been times when I have been sorry, my dear, though I have never confessed it to another soul. I am telling you this for your own good--not mine. If you have the love of a good man, Cynthia, be careful what you do with it."
The tears had come into Cynthia's eyes.
"I should have told you, Miss Lucretia," she faltered. "If I could have married him, it would have been easier."
"Why can't you marry him?" demanded Miss Lucretia, sharply--to hide her own emotion.
"His name," said Cynthia, "is Bob Worthington:"
"Isaac Worthington's son?"
"Yes."
Another silence, Miss Lucretia being utterly unable to say anything for a space.
"Is he a good man?"
Cynthia was on the point of indignant-protest, but she stopped herself in time.
"I will tell you what he has done," she answered, "and then you shall judge for yourself."
And she told Miss Lucretia, simply, all that Bob had done, and all that she herself had done.
"He is like his mother, Sarah Hollingsworth; I knew her well," said Miss Lucretia. "If Isaac Worthington were a man, he would be down on his knees begging you to marry his son. He tried hard enough to marry your own mother."
"My mother!" exclaimed Cynthia, who had never believed that rumor.
"Yes,"