s lacking in him, some substance
that makes the fighters and conquerors in this world. In such mood he
listened to the story of Jethro Bass.

"My dear husband," said Cynthia, when she had finished, her hand
tightening over his, "I have never told you this for fear that it might
trouble you as it has troubled me. I have found in your love sanctuary;
and all that remains of myself I have given to you."

"You have found a weakling to protect, and an invalid to nurse," he
answered. "To have your compassion, Cynthia, is all I crave."

So they lived through the happiest and swiftest years of his life,
working side by side, sharing this strange secret between them. And after
that night Cynthia talked to him often of Coniston, until he came to know
the mountain that lay along the western sky, and the sweet hillsides by
Coniston Water under the blue haze of autumn, aye, and clothed in the
colors of spring, the bright blossoms of thorn and apple against the
tender green of the woods and fields. So he grew to love the simple
people there, but little did he foresee that he was to end his life among
them!

But so it came to pass, she was taken from him, who had been the one joy
and inspiration of his weary days, and he was driven, wandering, into
unfrequented streets that he might not recall, the places where she had
once trod, and through the wakeful nights her voice haunted him,--its
laughter, its sweet notes of seriousness; little ways and manners of her
look came to twist his heart, and he prayed God to take him, too, until
it seemed that Cynthia frowned upon him for his weakness. One mild Sunday
afternoon, he took little Cynthia by the hand and led her, toddling, out
into the sunny Common, where he used to walk with her mother, and the
infant prattle seemed to bring--at last a strange peace to his
storm-tossed soul.

For many years these Sunday walks in the Common were Wetherell's greatest
pleasure and solace, and it seemed as though little Cynthia had come into
the world with an instinct, as it were, of her mission that lent to her
infant words a sweet gravity and weight. Many people used to stop and
speak to the child, among them a great physician whom they grew to know.
He was, there every Sunday, and at length it came to be a habit with him
to sit down on the bench and take Cynthia on his knee, and his stern face
would soften as he talked to her.

One Sunday when Cynthia was eight years old he missed them, and the nex