gh the greatness will be akin to that possessed by those gentlemen
who in past ages had built castles across the highway between Venice and
the North Sea. All this was in store for Bob Worthington, if he could
only be brought to see it. These things would be given him, if he would
but confine his worship to the god of wealth.

We are running ahead, however, of Bob's reflections in Mr. Merrill's
parlor in Mount Vernon Street, and the ceremony of showing him the
cities of his world from Brampton hill was yet to be gone through. Bob
knew his father's plans only in a general way, but in the past week he
had come to know his father with a fair amount of thoroughness. If Isaac
D. Worthington had but chosen a worldly wife, he might have had a more
worldly son. As it was, Bob's thoughts were a little bitter when Cynthia
spoke of his father, and he tried to think instead what his mother
would have him do. He could not, indeed, speak of Mr. Worthington's
shortcomings as he understood them, but he answered Cynthia vigorously
enough--even if his words were not as serious as she desired.

"I tell you I am old enough to judge for myself, Cynthia," said he, "and
I intend to judge for myself. I don't pretend to be a paragon of virtue,
but I have a kind of a conscience which tells me when I am doing wrong,
if I listen to it. I have not always listened to it. It tells me I'm
doing right now, and I mean to listen to it."

Cynthia could not but think there was very little self-denial attached
to this. Men are not given largely to self-denial.

"It is easy enough to listen to your conscience when you think it impels
you to do that which you want to do, Bob," she answered, laughing at his
argument in spite of herself.

"Are you wicked?" he demanded abruptly.

"Why, no, I don't think I am," said Cynthia, taken aback. But she
corrected herself swiftly, perceiving his bent. "I should be doing wrong
to let you come here."

He ignored the qualification.

"Are you vain and frivolous?"

She remembered that she had looked in the glass before she had come down
to him, and bit her lip.

"Are you given over to idle pursuits, to leading young men from their
occupations and duties?"

"If you've come here to recite the Blue Laws," said she, laughing again,
"I have something better to do than to listen to them."

"Cynthia," he cried, "I'll tell you what you are. I'll draw your
character for you, and then, if you can give me one good reason wh