ed before her in the
little sitting room of the John Billings house, their courage failed
them. There was something about this daughter of the Coniston storekeeper
and ward of Jethro Bass that made them pause. So much for the ladies of
Brampton. What they said among themselves would fill a chapter, and more.

There was, at this time, a singular falling-off in the attendance of the
Brampton Club. Ephraim sat alone most of the day in his Windsor chair by
the stove, pretending to read newspapers. But he did not mention this
fact to Cynthia. He was more lonesome than ever on the Saturdays and
Sundays which she spent with Jethro Bass.

Jethro Bass! It is he who might be made the theme of the music of the
snarling trumpets. What was he about during those six weeks? That is what
the state at large was beginning to wonder, and the state at large was
looking on at a drama, too. A rumor reached the capital and radiated
thence to every city and town and hamlet, and was followed by other
rumors like confirmations. Jethro Bass, for the first time in a long life
of activity, was inactive: inactive, too, at this most critical period of
his career, the climax of it, with a war to be waged which for bitterness
and ferocity would have no precedent; with the town meetings at hand,
where the frontier fighting was to be done, and no quarter given.
Lieutenants had gone to Coniston for further orders and instructions, and
had come back without either. Achilles was sulking in the tannery
house--some said a broken Achilles. Not a word could be got out of him,
or the sign of an intention. Jake Wheeler moped through the days in Rias
Richardson's store, too sore at heart to speak to any man, and could have
wept if tears had been a relief to him. No more blithe errands over the
mountain to Clovelly and elsewhere, though Jake knew the issue now and
itched for the battle, and the vassals of the hill-Rajah under a jubilant
Bijah Bixby were arming cap-a-pie. Lieutenant-General-and-Senator Peleg
Hartington of Brampton, in his office over the livery stable, shook his
head like a mournful stork when questioned by brother officers from afar.
Operations were at a standstill, and the sinews of war relaxed. Rural
givers of mortgages, who had not had the opportunity of selling them or
had feared to do so, began (mirabile dictu) to express opinions. Most
ominous sign of all--the proprietor of the Pelican Hotel had confessed
that the Throne Room had not been eng