Westwood's face beamed.
"You're not ashamed of your old father?" he said delightedly. "Bless you, my girl! What I shall do when the time comes for me to lose you, I'm sure I don't know!"
"You are not likely to lose me father. I shall probably stay with you always," said Cynthia rather sadly. But she brightened up when she saw his questioning face. "You and I shall always keep house together, shall we not?"
"Don't you think, Cynthia," said he, detaining her as she was about to move away, "that we might take MacPhail into partnership some of these days?"
"Partnership?" she repeated, not seeing his drift at first. "What do you want with a partner, father? Is there too much for you to do? Or haven't you enough capital? Why should you want a partner?"
"It isn't a partner for myself that I'm talking about, my pretty. I want a son—and the partner would be for you. In plain words, Donald MacPhail is head over ears in love with you Cynthia. Couldn't you bring yourself to look upon him as your husband, don't you think?"
"No, I could not," said Cynthia quickly and decisively. "There is only one man whom I could think of—and you know who that one is. If I do not marry him, I will marry nobody at all."
Westwood sighed and looked dispirited, but said no more.
Cynthia exerted herself to be particularly frigid to Mr. MacPhail when he next visited the house, and succeeded so well that the young Scotchman was utterly dismayed by her demeanor, and was not seen there again for many a long day.
Mr. MacPhail was not the only suitor that Cynthia had to send about his business. She was too handsome, too winning, to escape remark in a place where attractive women were rather rare. Her father used afterwards to observe, with a chuckle of delight, that she had had an offer from every eligible young man—and from some that were not eligible—within a circuit of sixty miles around his homestead; but Cynthia did not altogether like the recollection.