any rate."

As soon as he was out of the door, Susan became very repentant, and
slipped her hand about Cynthia's waist.

"We shouldn't have come in at all if we had known he would go so soon,
indeed we shouldn't, Cynthia." And seeing that Cynthia was still silent,
she added: "I wouldn't do such a mean thing, Cynthia, I really wouldn't.
Won't you believe me and forgive me?"

Cynthia scarcely heard her at first. She was thinking of Coniston
mountain, and how the sun had just set behind it. The mountain would be
ultramarine against the white fields, and the snow on the hill pastures
to the east stained red as with wine. What would she not have given to
be going back to-morrow--yes, with Bob. She confessed--though startled
by the very boldness of the thought--that she would like to be going
there with Bob. Susan's appeal brought her back to Boston and the
gas-lit parlor.

"Forgive you, Susan! There's nothing to forgive. I wanted him to go."

"You wanted him to go?" repeated Susan, amazed. She may be pardoned if
she did not believe this, but a glance at Cynthia's face scarcely left a
room for doubt. "Cynthia Wetherell, you're the strangest girl I've ever
known in all my life. If I had a--a friend" (Susan had another word on
her tongue) "if I had such a friend as Mr. Worthington, I shouldn't be
in a hurry to let him leave me. Of course," she added, "I shouldn't let
him know it."

Cynthia's heart was very heavy during the next few days, heavier by far
than her friends in Mount Vernon Street imagined. They had grown to love
her almost as one of themselves, and because of the sympathy which comes
of such love they guessed that her thoughts would be turning homeward
at Christmastide. At school she had listened, perforce, to the festival
plans of thirty girls of her own age; to accounts of the probable
presents they were to receive, the cost of some of which would support
a family in Coniston for several months; to arrangements for visits,
during which there were to be theatre-parties and dances and other
gaieties. Cynthia could not help wondering, as she listened in silence
to this talk, whether Uncle Jethro had done wisely in sending her to
Miss Sadler's; whether she would not have been far happier if she had
never known about such things.

Then came the last day of school, which began with leave-takings and
embraces. There were not many who embraced Cynthia, though, had she
known it, this was largely her own fault. Poor