flashing at the thought.
"I love him better than anybody in the world. Certainly no one ever had
better reason to care for a person. My father failed when he came to
Coniston--he was not meant for business, and Uncle Jethro took care of
him all his life, and paid his debts. And he has taken care of me and
given me everything that a girl could wish. Very few people know what a
fine character Uncle Jethro has," continued Cynthia, carried away as she
was by the pent-up flood of feeling within her. "I know what he has done
for others, and I should love him for that even if he never had done
anything for me."

Bob was silent. He was, in the first place, utterly amazed at this
outburst, revealing as it did a depth of passionate feeling in the girl
which he had never suspected, and which thrilled him. It was unlike her,
for she was usually so self-repressed; and, being unlike her, accentuated
both sides of her character the more.

But what was he to say of the defence of Jethro Bass? Bob was not a young
man who had pondered much over the problems of life, because these
problems had hitherto never touched him. But now he began to perceive,
dimly, things that might become the elements of a tragedy, even as Mr.
Merrill had perceived them some months before. Could a union endure
between so delicate a creature as the girl before him and Jethro Bass?
Could Cynthia ever go back to him again, and live with him happily,
without seeing many things which before were hidden by reason of her
youth and innocence?

Bob had not been nearly four years at college without learning something
of the world; and it had not needed the lecture from his father, which he
got upon leaving Washington, to inform him of Jethro's political
practices. He had argued soundly with his father on that occasion, having
the courage to ask Mr. Worthington in effect whether he did not sanction
his underlings to use the same tools as Jethro used. Mr. Worthington was
righteously angry, and declared that Jethro had inaugurated those
practices in the state, and had to be fought with his own weapons. But
Mr. Worthington had had the sense at that time not to mention Cynthia's
name. He hoped and believed that that affair was not serious, and merely
a boyish fancy--as indeed it was.

It remains to be said, however, that the lecture had not been without its
effect upon Bob. Jethro Bass, after all, was--Jethro Bass. All his life
Bob had heard him familiarly and jokingly spo