!

Four days afterward, on a Monday morning, she went back to Brampton to
begin the new term.

That same Monday a circumstance of no small importance took place in
Brampton--nothing less than the return, after a prolonged absence in the
West and elsewhere, of its first citizen. Isaac D. Worthington was again
in residence. No bells were rung, indeed, and no delegation of citizens
as such, headed by the selectmen, met him at the station; and
other feudal expressions of fealty were lacking. No staff flew Mr.
Worthington's arms; nevertheless the lord of Brampton was in his castle
again, and Brampton felt that he was there. He arrived alone, wearing
the silk hat which had become habitual with him now, and stepping into
his barouche at the station had been driven up Brampton Street behind
his grays, looking neither to the right nor left. His reddish chop
whiskers seemed to cling a little more closely to his face than
formerly, and long years of compression made his mouth look sterner
than ever. A hawk-like man, Isaac Worthington, to be reckoned with and
feared, whether in a frock coat or in breastplate and mail.

His seneschal, Mr. Flint, was awaiting him in the library. Mr. Flint was
large and very ugly, big-boned, smooth-shaven, with coarse features all
askew, and a large nose with many excrescences, and thick lips. He was
forty-two. From a foreman of the mills he had risen, step by step,
to his present position, which no one seemed able to define. He was,
indeed, a seneschal. He managed the mills in his lord's absence, and--if
the truth be told--in his presence; knotty questions of the Truro
Railroad were brought to Mr. Flint and submitted to Mr. Worthington,
who decided them, with Mr. Flint's advice; and, within the last three
months, Mr. Flint had invaded the realm of politics, quietly, as such a
man would, under the cover of his patron's name and glory. Mr. Flint
it was who had bought the Newcastle Guardian, who went occasionally to
Newcastle and spoke a few effective words now and then to the editor;
and, if the truth will out, Mr. Flint had largely conceived that scheme
about the railroads which was to set Mr. Worthington on the throne of
the state, although the scheme was not now being carried out according
to Mr. Flint's wishes. Mr. Flint was, in a sense, a Bismarck, but he
was not as yet all powerful. Sometimes his august master or one of his
fellow petty sovereigns would sweep Mr. Flint's plans into the waste
b