uld not have been happy if
I had driven you away from the place where you should be, which is your
home."

"Wherever you are will be my home; sweetheart," he said, and pressed her
to him once more.

At length, looking past his shoulder into the street, she saw Lem
Hallowell pulling up the Brampton stage before the door.

"Bob," she said, "I must go to Coniston and see Uncle Jethro. I promised
him."

Bob's answer was to walk into the entry, where he stood waving the most
joyous of greetings at the surprised stage driver.

"I guess you won't get anybody here, Lem," he called out.

"But, Bob," protested Cynthia, from within, afraid to show her face just
then, "I have to go, I promised. And--and I want to go," she added when
he turned.

"I'm running a stage to Coniston to-day myself, Lem," said he "and I'm
going to steal your best passenger."

Lemuel immediately flung down his reins and jumped out of the stage and
came up the path and into the entry, where he stood confronting Cynthia.

"Hev you took him, Cynthy?" he demanded.

"Yes, Lem," she answered, "won't you congratulate me?"

The warm-hearted stage driver did congratulate her in a most
unmistakable manner.

"I think a sight of her, Bob," he said after he had shaken both of Bob's
hands and brushed his own eyes with his coat sleeve. "I've knowed her
so long--" Whereupon utterance failed him, and he ran down the path and
jumped into his stage again and drove off.

And then Cynthia sent Bob on an errand--not a very long one, and
while he was gone, she sat down at the table and tried to realize her
happiness, and failed. In less than ten minutes Bob had come back with
Cousin Ephraim, as fast as he could hobble. He flung his arms around
her, stick and all, and he was crying. It is a fact that old soldiers
sometimes cry. But his tears did not choke his utterance.

"Great Tecumseh!" said Cousin Ephraim, "so you've went and done it,
Cynthy. Siege got a little mite too hot. I callated she'd capitulate in
the end, but she held out uncommon long."

"That she did," exclaimed Bob, feelingly.

"I--I was tellin' Bob I hain't got nothin' against him," continued
Ephraim.

"Oh, Cousin Eph," said Cynthia, laughing in spite of herself, and
glancing at Bob, "is that all you can say?"

"Cousin Eph's all right," said Bob, laughing too. "We understand each
other."

"Callate we do," answered Ephraim. "I'll go so far as to say there
hain't nobody I'd ruther see you ma