' 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 marry. Guess I'll hev to go back to the kit,
now. What's to become of the old pensioner, Cynthy?"

"The old pensioner needn't worry," said Cynthia.

Then drove up Silas the Silent, with Bob's buggy and his black trotters.
All of Brampton might see them now; and all of Brampton did see them.
Silas got out,--his presence not being required,--and Cynthia was helped
in, and Bob got in beside her, and away they went, leaving Ephraim waving
his stick after them from the doorstep.

It is recorded against the black trotters that they made very poor time
to Coniston that day, though I cannot discover that either of them was
lame. Lem Hallowell, who was there nearly an hour ahead of them, declares
that the off horse had a bunch of branches in his mouth. Perhaps Bob held
them in on account of the scenery that September afternoon. Incomparable
scenery! I doubt if two lovers of the renaissance ever wandered through a
more wondrous realm of pleasance--to quote the words of the poet. Spots
in it are like a park, laid out by that peerless landscape gardener,
nature: dark, symmetrical pine trees on the sward, and maples in the
fulness of their leaf, and great oaks on the hillsides, and, coppices;
and beyond, the mountain, the evergreens massed like cloud-shadows on its
slopes; and all-trees and coppice and mountain--flattened by the haze
until they seemed woven in the softest of blues and blue greens into one
exquisite picture of an ancient tapestry. I, myself, have seen these
pictures in that country, and marvelled.

So they drove on through that realm, which was to be their realm, and
came all too soon to Coniston green. Lem Hallowell had spread the
well-nigh incredible news, that Cynthia Wetherell was to marry the son of
the mill-owner and railroad president of Brampton, and it seemed to
Cynthia that every man and woman and child of the village was gathered at
the store. Although she loved them, every one, she whispered something to
Bob when she caught sight of that group on the platform, and he spoke to
the trotters. Thus it happened that they flew by, and were at the tannery
hous