bout it, Mr.
Bass?"

"W-want the bill to pass--don't you?"

"Certainly," Mr. Worthington had cried, on the edge of losing his temper.

"L-left it to me--didn't you?

"Yes, but I'm entitled to know what's being done. I'm paying for it."

"H-hain't paid for it yet--hev you?"

"No, I most assuredly haven't."

"B-better wait till you do."

There was very little satisfaction in this, and Mr. Worthington had at
length been compelled to depart, fuming, to the house of his friend the
enemy, Mr. Duncan, there to attempt for the twentieth time to persuade
Mr. Duncan to call off his dogs who were sitting with such praiseworthy
pertinacity in their seats. As the two friends walked on the lawn, Mr.
Worthington tried to explain, likewise for the twentieth time, that the
extension of the Truro Railroad could in no way lessen the Canadian
traffic of the Central, Mr. Duncan's road. But Mr. Duncan could not see
it that way, and stuck to his present ally, Mr. Lovejoy, and refused
point-blank to call off his dogs. Business was business.

It is an apparently inexplicable fact, however, that Mr. Worthington and
his son Bob were guests at the Duncan mansion at the capital. Two
countries may not be allies, but their sovereigns may be friends. In the
present instance, Mr. Duncan and Mr. Worthington's railroads were
opposed, diplomatically, but another year might see the Truro Railroad
and the Central acting as one. And Mr. Worthington had no intention
whatever of sacrificing Mr. Duncan's friendship. The first citizen of
Brampton possessed one quality so essential to greatness--that of looking
into the future, and he believed that the time would come when an event
of some importance might create a perpetual alliance between himself and
Mr. Duncan. In short, Mr. Duncan had a daughter, Janet, and Mr.
Worthington, as we know, had a son. And Mr. Duncan, in addition to his
own fortune, had married one of the richest heiresses in New England.
Prudens futuri, that was Mr. Worthington's motto.

The next morning Cynthia, who was walking about the town alone, found
herself gazing over a picket fence at a great square house with a very
wide cornice that stood by itself in the centre of a shade-flecked lawn.
There were masses of shrubbery here and there, and a greenhouse, and a
latticed summer-house: and Cynthia was wondering what it would be like to
live in a great place like that, when a barouche with two shining horses
in silver harness drove