and folded up the bundle again and gave it
to him.

"B-better keep it--hadn't you?"

"No, you keep it. And I will wear it for you when I am rich, Uncle
Jethro."

Jethro did keep it, and in due time the cardinal cloth had its uses. But
Cynthia did not wear it on the Fourth of July.

That was a great day for Brampton, being not only the nation's birthday,
but the hundredth year since the adventurous little band of settlers
from Connecticut had first gazed upon Coniston Water at that place.
Early in the morning wagon loads began to pour into Brampton Street
from Harwich, from Coniston, from Tarleton Four Corners, and even from
distant Clovelly, and Brampton was banner-hung for the occasion--flags
across the stores, across the dwellings, and draped along the whole
breadth of the meeting-house; but for sheer splendor the newly built
mansion of Isaac D. Worthington outshone them all. Although its owner
was a professed believer in republican simplicity, no such edifice
ornamented any town to the west of the state capital. Small wonder that
the way in front of it was blocked by a crowd lost in admiration of
its Gothic proportions! It stands to-day one of many monuments to its
builder, with its windows of one pane (unheard-of magnificence), its
tower of stone, its porch with pointed arches and scroll-work. No fence
divides its grounds from the public walk, and on the smooth-shaven lawn
between the ornamental flower beds and the walk stand two stern mastiffs
of iron, emblematic of the solidity and power of their owner. It was
as much to see this house as to hear the oratory that the countryside
flocked to Brampton that day.

All the day before Cynthia and Milly, and many another housewife, had
been making wonderful things for the dinners they were to bring, and
stowing them in the great basket ready for the early morning start. At
six o'clock Jethro's three-seated farm wagon was in front of the store.
Cousin Ephraim Prescott, in a blue suit and an army felt hat with a
cord, got up behind, a little stiffly by reason of that Wilderness
bullet; and there were also William Wetherell and Lem Hallowell, his
honest face shining, and Sue, his wife, and young Sue and Jock and
Lilian, all a-quiver with excitement in their Sunday best.

And as they drove away there trotted up behind them Moses and Amandy
Hatch, with their farm team, and all the little Hatches,--Eben and
George and Judy and Liza. As they jogged along they drank in th