eat their expressions of indignation and
sympathy. There was a certain Mr. Gamaliel Ives in the town, belonging to
an old Brampton family, who would have been the first citizen if that
other first citizen had not, by his rise to wealth and power, so
completely overshadowed him. Mr. Ives owned a small mill on Coniston
Water below the town. He fairly bubbled over with civic pride, and he was
an authority on all matters pertaining to Brampton's history. He knew
the "Hymn to Coniston" by heart. But we are digressing a little. Mr.
Ives, like that other Gamaliel of old, had exhorted his fellow-townsmen
to wash their hands of the controversy. But he was an intimate of Judge
Graves, and after talking with that gentleman he became a partisan
overnight; and when he had stopped to get his mail he had been lured
behind the window by the debate in progress. He was in the midst of some
impromptu remarks when he recognized a certain brisk step behind him, and
Isaac D. Worthington himself entered the sanctum!

It must be explained that Mr. Worthington sometimes had an important
letter to be registered which he carried to the postoffice with his own
hands. On such occasions--though not a member of the Brampton Club--he
walked, as an overlord will, into any private place he chose, and
recognized no partitions or barriers. Now he handed the letter (addressed
to a certain person in Cambridge, Massachusetts) to the postmaster.

"You will kindly register that and give me a receipt, Mr. Prescott," he
said.

Ephraim turned from his contemplation of the features of the martyred
President, and on his face was something of the look it might have worn
when he confronted his enemies over the log-works at Five Forks. No, for
there was a vast contempt in his gaze now, and he had had no contempt for
the Southerners, and would have shaken hands with any of them the moment
the battle was over. Mr. Worthington, in spite of himself, recoiled a
little before that look, fearing, perhaps, physical violence.

"I hain't a-goin' to hurt you, Mr. Worthington," Ephraim said, "but I am
a-goin' to ask you to git out in front, and mighty quick. If you hev any
business with the postmaster, there's the window," and Ephraim pointed to
it with his twisted finger. "I don't allow nobody but my friends here,
Mr. Worthington, and people I respect."

Mr. Worthington looked--well, eye-witnesses give various versions as to
how he looked. All agree that his lip trembled; so