be seen. Mr. Worthington, whose hawklike look had become more pronounced,
sat upright, while the Honorable Heth, his legs crossed, filled every
nook and cranny of an arm-chair, and an occasional fragrant whiff from
his cigar floated out to those on the tar sidewalk. Although the
pedestrians were but twenty feet away, what Mr. Worthington said never
reached them; but the Honorable Heth on public days carried his voice of
the Forum around with him.

"Come on," said Cynthia, in one of those startling little tempers she was
subject to; "don't stand there like an idiot."

Then the voice of Mr. Sutton boomed toward them.

"As I understand, Worthington," they heard him say, "you want me to
appoint young Wheelock for the Brampton post-office." He stuck his thumb
into his vest pocket and recrossed his legs "I guess it can be arranged."

When the painter at last overtook Cynthia the jewel paints he had so
often longed to catch upon a canvas were in her eyes. He fell back,
wondering how he could so greatly have offended, when she put her hand on
his sleeve.

"Did you hear what he said about the Brampton postoffice?" she cried.

"The Brampton post-office?" he repeated; dazed.

"Yes," said Cynthia; "Uncle Jethro has promised it to Cousin Ephraim, who
will starve without it. Did you hear this man say he would give it to Mr.
Wheelock?"

Here was a new Cynthia, aflame with emotions on a question of politics of
which he knew nothing. He did, understand, however, her concern for
Ephraim Prescott, for he knew that she loved the soldier. She turned from
the painter now with a gesture which he took to mean that his profession
debarred him from such vital subjects, and she led the way to the
fair-grounds. There he meekly bought tickets, and they found themselves
hurried along in the eager crowd toward the stand.

The girl was still unaccountably angry over that mysterious affair of the
post-office, and sat with flushed cheeks staring out on the green field,
past the line of buggies and carryalls on the farther side to the
southern shoulder of Coniston towering, above them all. The painter,
already, beginning to love his New England folk, listened to the homely
chatter about him, until suddenly a cheer starting in one corner ran like
a flash of gunpowder around the field, and eighteen young men trotted
across the turf. Although he was not a devotee of sport, he noticed that
nine of these, as they took their places on the bench, wor