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 s.p.a.ce.
"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," said Miss Lucretia, "and you may thank your stars he didn"t succeed. I mistrusted him when he was a young man, and now I know that he hasn"t changed. He is a coward and a hypocrite."
Cynthia could not deny this.
"And yet," she said, after a moment"s silence, "I am sure you will say that I have been right. My own conscience tells me that it is wrong to deprive Bob of his inheritance, and to separate him from his father, whatever his father--may be."
"We shall see what happens in five years," said Miss Lucretia.
"Five years!" said Cynthia, in spite of herself.
"Jacob served seven for Rachel," answered Miss Lucretia; "that period is scarcely too short to test a man, and you are both young."
"No," said Cynthia, "I cannot marry him, Miss Lucretia. The world would accuse me of design, and I feel that I should not be happy. I am sure that he would never reproach me, even if things went wrong, but--the day might come when--when he would wish that it had been otherwise."
Miss Lucretia kissed her.
"You are very young, my dear," she repeated, "and none of us may say what changes time may bring forth. And now I must go."
Cynthia insisted upon walking with her friend down the street to the hotel--an undertaking that was without danger in Brampton. And it was only a step, after all. A late moon floated in the sky, throwing in relief the shadow of the Worthington mansion against the white patches of snow. A light was still burning in the library.
The next morning after breakfast Miss Lucretia appeared at the little house, and informed Cynthia that she would walk to school with her.
"But I have not yet been notified by the Committee," said Cynthia. There was a knock at the door, and in walked Judge Ezra Graves. Miss Lucretia may have blushed, but it is certain that Cynthia did. Never had she seen the judge so spick and span, and he wore the broadcloth coat he usually reserved for Sundays. He paused at the threshold, with his hand on his Adam"s apple.
"Good morning, ladies," he said, and looked shyly at Miss Lucretia and cleared his throat, and spoke with the elaborate decorum he used on occasions, "Miss Penniman, I wish to thank you again for your n.o.ble action of last evening."
"Don"t "Miss Penniman" me, Ezra Graves," retorted Miss Lucretia; "the only n.o.ble action I know of was poor Jonathan Hill"s--unless it was paying for the gas."
This was the way in which Miss Lucretia treated her lover after thirty years! Cynthia thought of what the lady had said to her a few hours since, by this very fire, and began to believe she must have dreamed it.
Fires look very differently at night--and sometimes burn brighter then.
The judge parted his coat tails, and seated himself on the wooden edge of a cane-bottomed chair.
"Lucretia," he said, "you haven"t changed."
"You have, Ezra," she replied, looking at the Adam"s apple.