amber on the right of the door, which had been
Cynthia's.

Long Wetherell lay awake that night, in his room at the gable-end over
the store, listening to the rustling of the great oak beside the windows,
to the whippoorwills calling across Coniston Water. But at last a peace
descended upon him, and he slept: yes, and awoke with the same sense of
peace at little Cynthia's touch, to go out into the cool morning, when
the mountain side was in myriad sheens of green under the rising sun.
Behind the store was an old-fashioned garden, set about by a neat stone
wall, hidden here and there by the masses of lilac and currant bushes,
and at the south of it was a great rose-covered boulder of granite. And
beyond, through the foliage of the willows and the low apple trees which
Jonah Winch had set out, Coniston Water gleamed and tumbled. Under an
arching elm near the house was the well, stone-rimmed, with its long pole
and crotch, and bucket all green with the damp moss which clung to it.

Ephraim Prescott had been right when he had declared that it did not take
much gumption to keep store in Coniston. William Wetherell merely assumed
certain obligations at the Brampton bank, and Lem Hallowell, Jock's son,
who now drove the Brampton stage, brought the goods to the door. Little
Rias Richardson was willing to come in, and help move the barrels, and on
such occasions wore carpet slippers to save his shoes. William still had
time for his books; in that Coniston air he began to feel stronger, and
to wonder whether he might not be a Washington Irving yet. And yet he had
one worry and one fear, and both of these concerned one man,--Jethro
Bass. Him, by her own confession, Cynthia Ware had loved to her dying
day, hating herself for it: and he, William Wetherell, had married this
woman whom Jethro had loved so violently, and must always love--so
Wetherell thought: that was the worry. How would Jethro treat him? that
was the fear. William Wetherell was not the most courageous man in the
world.

Jethro Bass had not been in Coniston since William's arrival. No need to
ask where he was. Jake Wheeler, Jethro's lieutenant in Coniston, gave
William a glowing account of that Throne Room in the Pelican Hotel at the
capital, from whence Jethro ruled the state during the sessions of the
General Court. This legislature sat to him as a sort of advisory
committee of three hundred and fifty: an expensive advisory committee to
the people, relic of an obs