," she said, "I am going to marry Bob Worthington."

"Yes, Cynthy," he answered. And taking the initiative for the first time
in his life, he stooped down and kissed her.

"I knew--you would be happy--in my happiness," she said, the tears
brimming in her eyes.

"N-never have been so happy, Cynthy,--never have."

"Uncle Jethro, I never will desert you. I shall always take care of
you."

"R-read to me sometimes, Cynthy--r-read to me?"

But she could not answer him. She was sobbing on the pages of that book
he had given her--long ago.

I like to dwell on happiness, and I am reluctant to leave these people
whom I have grown to love. Jethro Bass lived to take Cynthia's children
down by the brook and to show them the pictures, at least, in that
wonderful edition of "Robinson Crusoe." He would never depart from the
tannery house, but Cynthia went to him there, many times a week. There
is a spot not far from the Coniston road, and five miles distant alike
from Brampton and Coniston, where Bob Worthington built his house, and
where he and Cynthia dwelt many years; and they go there to this day, in
the summer-time. It stands in the midst of broad lands, and the ground
in front of it slopes down to Coniston Water, artificially widened here
by a stone dam into a little lake. From the balcony of the summer-house
which overhangs the lake there is a wonderful view of Coniston Mountain,
and Cynthia Worthington often sits there with her sewing or her book,
listening to the laughter of her children, and thinking, sometimes, of
bygone days.

AFTERWORD

The reality of the foregoing pages has to the author, at least, become
so vivid that he regrets the necessity of having to add an afterword.
Every novel is, to some extent, a compound of truth and fiction, and he
has done his best to picture conditions as they were, and to make the
spirit of his book true. Certain people who were living in St. Louis
during the Civil War have been mentioned as the originals of characters
in "The Crisis," and there are houses in that city which have been
pointed out as fitting descriptions in that novel. An author has,
frequently, people, houses, and localities in mind when he writes; but
he changes them, sometimes very materially, in the process of literary
construction.

It is inevitable, perhaps, that many people of a certain New England
state will recognize Jethro Bass. There are different opinions extant
concerning the remarkable origi