"Read the book, and you'll see," retorted Cynthia, flicking her horse,
which started at all gaits down the road. Jethro stood in his tracks,
staring, but this time he did not see her face above the hood of the gig.
Presently he trudged on, head downward, pondering upon another problem
than Napoleon's. Cynthia, at length, arrived in Brampton Street, in a
humor that puzzled the good Miss Lucretia sorely.




CHAPTER II

The sun had dropped behind the mountain, leaving Coniston in amethystine
shadow, and the last bee had flown homeward from the apple blossoms in
front of Aunt Lucy Prescott's window, before Cynthia returned. Aunt Lucy
was Cynthia's grandmother, and eighty-nine years of age. Still she sat in
her window beside the lilac bush, lost in memories of a stout, rosy lass
who had followed a stalwart husband up a broad river into the wilderness
some seventy years agone in Indian days--Weathersfield Massacre days.
That lass was Aunt Lucy herself, and in just such a May had Timothy's axe
rung through the Coniston forest and reared the log cabin, where six of
her children were born. Likewise in review passed the lonely months when
Timothy was fighting behind his rugged General Stark for that privilege
more desirable to his kind than life--self government. Timothy Prescott
would pull the forelock to no man, would have such God-fearing persons as
he chose make his laws for him.

Honest Captain Timothy and his Stark heroes, Aunt Lucy and her memories,
have long gone to rest. Little did they dream of the nation we have lived
to see, straining at her constitution like a great ship at anchor in a