intelligent, but interesting. The clock strikes four, Miss Lucretia
starts up, suddenly remembering that she has promised to read to an
invalid, and with many regrets from Mr. Worthington, she departs. Then he
sits down again, twirling his beaver, while Cynthia looks at him in quiet
amusement.

"I shall walk to Coniston again, next week," he announced.

"What an energetic man!" said Cynthia.

"I want to have my fortune told."

"I hear that you walk a great deal," she remarked, "up and down Coniston
Water. I shall begin to think you romantic, Mr. Worthington--perhaps a
poet."

"I don't walk up and down Coniston Water for that reason," he answered
earnestly.

"Might I be so bold as to ask the reason?" she ventured.

Great men have their weaknesses. And many, close-mouthed with their own
sex, will tell their cherished hopes to a woman, if their interests are
engaged. With a bas-relief of Isaac Worthington in the town library
to-day (his own library), and a full-length portrait of him in the
capitol of the state, who shall deny this title to greatness?

He leaned a little toward her, his face illumined by his subject, which
was himself.

"I will confide in you," he said, "that some day I shall build here in
Brampton a woollen mill which will be the best of its kind. If I gain
money, it will not be to hoard it or to waste it. I shall try to make the
town better for it, and the state, and I shall try to elevate my
neighbors."

Cynthia could not deny that these were laudable ambitions.

"Something tells me," he continued, "that I shall succeed. And that is
why I walk on Coniston Water--to choose the best site for a dam."

"I am honored by your secret, but I feel that the responsibility you
repose in me is too great," she said.

"I can think of none in whom I would rather confide," said he.

"And am I the only one in all Brampton, Harwich, and Coniston who knows
this?" she asked.

Mr. Worthington laughed.

"The only one of importance," he answered. "This week, when I went to
Coniston, I had a strange experience. I left the brook at a tannery, and
a most singular fellow was in the shed shovelling bark. I tried to get
him to talk, and told him about some new tanning machinery I had seen.
Suddenly he turned on me and asked me if I was 'callatin' to set up a
mill.' He gave me a queer feeling. Do you have many such odd characters
in Coniston, Miss Cynthia? You're not going?"

Cynthia had risen, and all of the