"What be you a-goin' to do about it?" said Mr. Dodd.

"Do about what?" demanded the judge, looking at the hardware dealer from
under his eyebrows.

Mr. Dodd knew well enough that this was not ignorance on the part of Mr.
Graves, whose position in the matter dad been very well defined in the
two sentences he had spoken. Mr. Dodd perceived that the judge was trying
to get him to commit himself, and would then proceed to annihilate him.
He, Levi Dodd, had no intention of walking into such a trap.

"Well," said he, with a final tug at the tuft, "if that's the way you
feel about it."

"Feel about what?" said the judge, fiercely.

"Callate you know best," said Mr. Dodd, and passed on up the street. But
he felt the judge's gimlet eyes boring holes in his back. The judge's
position was very fine, no doubt for the judge. All of which tends to
show that Levi Dodd had swept his mind, and that it was ready now for the
reception of an opinion.

Six weeks or more, as has been said, passed before the curtain rose
again, but the snarling trumpets of the orchestra played a fitting
prelude. Cynthia's feelings and Cynthia's life need not be gone into
during this interval knowing her character, they may well be imagined.
They were trying enough, but Brampton had no means of guessing them.
During the weeks she came and went between the little house and the
little school, putting all the strength that was in her into her duties.
The Prudential Committee, which sometimes sat on the platform, could find
no fault with the performance of these duties, or with the capability of
the teacher, and it is not going too far to state that the children grew
to love her better than Miss Goddard had been loved. It may be declared
that children are the fittest citizens of a republic, because they are
apt to make up their own minds on any subject without regard to public
opinion. It was so with the scholars of Brampton village lower school:
they grew to love the new teacher, careless of what the attitude of their
elders might be, and some of them could have been seen almost any day
walking home with her down the street.

As for the attitude of the elders--there was none. Before assuming one
they had thought it best, with characteristic caution, to await the next
act in the drama. There were ladies in Brampton whose hearts prompted
them, when they called on the new teacher, to speak a kindly word of
warning and advice; but somehow, when they were seat