h an inclination toward the judge, "my
friends--for I hope you will be my friends when I have finished" (Miss
Lucretia made it quite clear by her tone that it entirely depended upon
them whether they would be or not), "I understood when I came here that
this was to be a mass meeting to protest against an injustice, and not a
feast of literature and oratory, as Gamaliel Ives seems to suppose."

She paused, and when the first shock of amazement was past an audible
titter ran through the audience, and Mr. Ives squirmed visibly.

"Am I right, Mr. Chairman?" asked Miss Lucretia.

"You are unquestionably right, Miss Penniman," answered the chairman,
rising, "unquestionably."

"Then I will proceed," said Miss Lucretia. "I wrote the Hymn to
Coniston' many years ago, when I was younger, and yet it is true that I
have always remembered Brampton with kindly feelings. The friends of our
youth are dear to us. We look indulgently upon their failings, even as
they do on ours. I have scanned the faces here in the hall to-night, and
there are some that have not changed beyond recognition in thirty years.
Ezra Graves I remember, and it is a pleasure to see him in that chair."
(Mr. Graves inclined his head, reverently. None knew how the inner man
exulted.) "But there was one who was often in Brampton in those days,"
Miss Lucretia continued, "whom we all loved and with whom we found
no fault, and I confess that when I have thought of Brampton I have
oftenest thought of her. Her name," said Miss Lucretia, her hand now in
the reticule, "her name was Cynthia Ware."

There was a decided stir among the audience, and many leaned forward to
catch every word.

"Even old people may have an ideal," said Miss Lucretia, "and you will
forgive me for speaking of mine. Where should I speak of it, if not in
this village, among those who knew her and among their children? Cynthia
Ware, although she was younger than I, has been my ideal, and is
still. She was the daughter of the Rev. Samuel Ware of Coniston, and
a descendant of Captain Timothy Prescott, whom General Stark called
'Honest Tim.' She was, to me, all that a woman should be, in intellect,
in her scorn of all that is ignoble and false, and in her loyalty to her
friends." Here the handkerchief came out of the reticule. "She went to
Boston to teach school, and some time afterward I was offered a position
in New York, and I never saw her again. But she married in Boston a man
of learning and li