is doing right, Stephen."

Mr. Merrill groaned. His wife rose and put her hand on his shoulder.

"Come, Stephen," she said gently, "you will see her in the morning.

"I will go to Coniston with her," he said.

"No," replied Mrs. Merrily "she wants to go alone. And I believe it is
best that she should."

CHAPTER XII

Great afflictions generally bring in their train a host of smaller
sorrows, each with its own little pang. One of these sorrows had been
the parting with the Merrill family. Under any circumstance it was not
easy for Cynthia to express her feelings, and now she had found it very
difficult to speak of the gratitude and affection which she felt. But
they understood--dear, good people that they were: no eloquence was
needed with them. The ordeal of breakfast over, and the tearful "God
bless you, Miss Cynthia," of Ellen the parlor-maid, the whole family had
gone with her to the station. For Susan and Jane had spent their last
day at Miss Sadler's school.

Mr. Merrill had sent for the conductor and bidden him take care of Miss
Wetherell, and recommend her in his name to a conductor on the Truro
Road. The man took off his cap to Mr. Merrill and called him by name
and promised. It was a dark day, and long after the train had pulled out
Cynthia remembered the tearful faces of the family standing on the
damp platform of the station. As they fled northward through the flat
river-meadows, the conductor would have liked to talk to her of Mr.
Merrill; there were few employees on any railroad who did not know the
genial and kindly president of the Grand Gulf and sympathize with
his troubles. But there was a look on the girl's face that forbade
intrusion. Passengers stared at her covertly, as though fascinated by
that look, and some tried to fathom it. But her eyes were firmly fixed
upon a point far beyond their vision. The car stopped many times, and
flew on again, but nothing seemed to break her absorption.

At last she was aroused by the touch of the conductor on her sleeve. The
people were beginning to file out of the car, and the train was under
the shadow of the snow-covered sheds in the station of the state
capital. Cynthia recognized the place, though it was cold and bare
and very different in appearance from what it had been on the summer's
evening when she had come into it with her father. That, in effect, had
been her first glimpse of the world, and well she recalled the thrill
it had given her. T