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A few people looked curiously at the lady carrying such a heavy, weeping child, but she met no one whom she knew, and the others looked indifferently away after a second backward stare. Cynthia Lennox was one to bear herself with such dignity over all jolts of circumstances that she might almost convince others of her own exemption from them.
But the girls had gone to some of the old places, where witches had been taken from their homes and cast into jail, the Court House where they had been tried, and Gallows Hill, that most people shunned even now. One rainy evening, after her lessons had been studied, Cynthia went downstairs. Rachel had been fomenting her face for the toothache and was lying down.
The cry, died on Cynthia's lips, and she stopped, gazing up at him with wonder in her eyes. "F-found strawberries?" said Jethro, at last. "Yes," she answered. She was very grave and serious now, as was her manner in dealing with people. "S-show 'em to me," said Jethro. Cynthia went to him, without embarrassment, and put her hand on his knee. Not once had he taken his eyes from her face.
"The pay for my sewing is due in three days," said Cynthia, raising her roughened hand on which the needle-scars showed even in the moonlight. "Mother has worried so to-day that I couldn't work except at odd moments, but I can easily manage to sit up to-night and get it done. She thinks I'm embroidering an ottoman, you see, and this evening she asked to feel the silks."
No man is less likely to come to the knowledge of the truth than he who is always deep in love with some new thought, 'the Cynthia of the minute, and ever ready to barter 'old lamps for new ones. But all these things admitted, still it remains true that we are here to learn, that our education is to go on all our days, and that here on earth it can only be carried out by our parting with the old store, which may have become musty by long lying in the granaries, to make room for the new, just gathered in the ripened field.
"You would, would you!" he exclaimed. "I shouldn't have thought that." "Isn't he your friend?" asked Cynthia. "Oh, yes," said Bob, "and one of the best in the world. Only I shouldn't have thought you'd care to talk to him." And he looked around for fear the vigilant Mr. Duncan was already in the park and had discovered them. Cynthia smiled, and immediately became grave again.
If they have not the courage to right the wrong, and force your reinstatement through public opinion, there is nothing more to be done." To Cynthia, the idea of having a mass meeting concerning herself was particularly repellent. "Oh, Judge Graves!" she cried, "if there isn't any other way, please drop the matter. There are plenty of teachers who will be acceptable to everybody."
If he were not sleeping, he would speak her name: he repeated it often in those days, as though the sound of it gave him comfort; and he would fall asleep with it on his lips, holding her hand, and thinking, perhaps, of that other Cynthia who had tended and nursed and shielded him in other days.
Cynthia lingered to hear no more, and went out, dazed, into the September sunshine: Jethro beaten, and broken, and gone to Coniston. Resolution came to her as she walked. Arriving home, she wrote a little note and left it on the table for Ephraim; and going out again, ran by the back lane to Mr.
Cynthia followed the spelling where they went up and down. Then the larger ones were dismissed for recess. "Cynthy Leverett, come up here and see how many words you can spell. You ought to be ashamed, a big girl like you staying behind in next to the baby class." Cynthia's face was scarlet. Alas! She had been so interested watching and listening she had not studied at all.
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