at lass was Aunt Lucy herself, and in just such a May had Timothy's axe
rung through the Coniston forest and reared the log cabin, where six of
her children were born. Likewise in review passed the lonely months when
Timothy was fighting behind his rugged General Stark for that privilege
more desirable to his kind than life--self government. Timothy Prescott
would pull the forelock to no man, would have such God-fearing persons as
he chose make his laws for him.

Honest Captain Timothy and his Stark heroes, Aunt Lucy and her memories,
have long gone to rest. Little did they dream of the nation we have lived
to see, straining at her constitution like a great ship at anchor in a
gale, with funnels belching forth smoke, and a new race of men thronging
her decks for the mastery. Coniston is there still behind its mountain,
with its rusty firelocks and its hillside graves.

Cynthia, driving back from Brampton in the gig, smiled at Aunt Lucy in
the window, but she did not so much as glance at the tannery house
farther on. The tannery house, be it known, was the cottage where Jethro
dwelt, and which had belonged to Nathan, his father; and the tannery
sheds were at some distance behind it, nearer Coniston Water. Cynthia did
not glance at the tannery house, for a wave of orthodox indignation had
swept over her: at any rate, we may call it so. In other words, she was
angry with herself: pitied and scorned herself, if the truth be told, for
her actions--an inevitable mood.

In front of the minister's barn under the elms on the hill Cynthia pulled
the harness from the tired horse with an energy that betokened activity
of mind. She was not one who shrank from self-knowledge, and the question
put itself to her, "Whither was this matter tending?" The fire that is in
strong men has ever been a lure to women; and many, meaning to play with
it, have been burnt thereby since the world began. But to turn the fire.
to some use, to make the world better for it or stranger for it, that
were an achievement indeed! The horse munching his hay, Cynthia lingered
as the light fainted above the ridge, with the thought that this might be
woman's province, and Miss Lucretia Penniman might go on leading her
women regiments to no avail. Nevertheless she was angry with Jethro, not
because of what he had said, but because of what he was.

The next day is Sunday, and there is mild excitement in Coniston. For
Jethro Bass, still with the coonskin cap, but