ped into the schoolmistress
herself! Worse than this, he had taken off his hat and begged her pardon
before he looked at her and realized the enormity of his mistake. And the
schoolmistress had actually paid no attention to him, but with merely
heightened color had drawn the children out of his way and passed on
without a word. The first citizen, raging inwardly, but trying to appear
unconcerned, walked rapidly back to his house. On the street of his own
town, before the eyes of men, he had been snubbed by a school-teacher.
And such a schoolteacher!

Mr. Worthington, as he paced his library burning with the shame of this
occurrence, remembered that he had had to glance at her twice before it
came over him who she was. His first sensation had been astonishment. And
now, in spite of his bitter anger, he had to acknowledge that the face
had made an impression on him--a fact that only served to increase his
rage. A conviction grew upon him that it was a face which his son, or any
other man, would not be likely to forget. He himself could not forget it.

In the meantime Cynthia had reached her home, her cheeks still smarting,
conscious that people had stared at her. This much, of course, she
knew--that Brampton believed Bob Worthington to be in love with her: and
the knowledge at such times made her so miserable that the thought of
Jethro's isolation alone deterred her from asking Miss Lucretia Penniman
for a position in Boston. For she wrote to Miss Lucretia about her life
and her reading, as that lady had made her promise to do. She sat down
now at the cherry chest of drawers that was also a desk, to write: not to
pour out her troubles, for she never had done that,--but to calm her mind
by drawing little character sketches of her pupils. But she had only
written the words, "My dear Miss Lucretia," when she looked out of the
window and saw Judge Graves coming up the path, and ran to open the door
for him.

"How do you do, Judge?" she said, for she recognized Mr. Graves as one of
her few friends in Brampton. "I have sent to Boston for the new reader,
but it has not come."

The judge took her hand and pressed it and led her into the little
sitting room. His face was very stern, but his eyes, which had flung fire
at Mr. Dodd, looked at her with a vast compassion. Her heart misgave her.

"My dear," he said,--it was long since the judge had called any woman "my
dear,"--"I have bad news for you. The committee have decided tha