id Cynthia.

"You hear from him?" inquired Mr. Worthington, giving her a quick glance.

"Yes," said Cynthia, her color rising a little.

"And yet," said Mr. Worthington, slowly, "I have been under the
impression that you have persistently refused to marry him."

"That is true," she answered.

"I cannot refrain from complimenting you, Cynthia, upon such rare
conduct," said he. "You will be glad to know that it has contributed more
than anything else toward my estimation of your character, and has
strengthened me in my resolution that I am now doing right. It may be
difficult for you to understand a father's feelings. The complete
separation from my only son was telling on me severely, and I could not
forget that you were the cause of that separation. I knew nothing about
you, except--" He hesitated, for she had turned to him.

"Except what?" she asked.

Mr. Worthington coughed. Mr. Flint had told him, that very morning, of
her separation from Jethro, and of the reasons which people believed had
caused it. Unfortunately, we have not time to go into that conversation
with Mr. Flint, who had given a very good account of Cynthia indeed.
After all (Mr. Worthington reflected), he had consented to the marriage,
and there was no use in bringing Jethro's name into the conversation.
Jethro would be forgotten soon.

"I will not deny to You that I had other plans for my son," he said. "I
had hoped that he would marry a daughter of a friend of mine. You must be
a little indulgent with parents, Cynthia," he added with a little smile,
"we have our castles in the air, too. Sometimes, as in this case, by a
wise provision of providence they go astray. I suppose you have heard of
Miss Duncan's marriage."

"No," said Cynthia.

"She ran off with a worthless Italian nobleman. I believe, on the whole,"
he said, with what was an extreme complaisance for the first citizen,
"that I have reason to congratulate myself upon Robert's choice. I have
made inquiries about you, and I find that I have had the pleasure of
knowing your mother, whom I respected very much. And your father, I
understand, came of very good people, and was forced by circumstances to
adopt the means of livelihood he did. My attention has been called to the
letters he wrote to the Guardian, which I hear have been highly praised
by competent critics, and I have ordered a set of them for the files of
the library. You yourself, I find, are highly thought of in Brampton" (a