Cynthia was still lying with her face in her pillow when her father came into the dark little house, and peered into her room with the newly lighted lamp in his hand. She turned her face quickly over and looked at him with dry and shining eyes.
"Well, it's all over with Jeff and me, father."
"Well, I'm satisfied," said Whitwell. "If you could ha' made it up, so you could ha' felt right about it, I shouldn't ha' had anything to say against it, but I'm glad it's turned out the way it has. He's a comical devil, and he always was, and I'm glad you a'n't takin' on about him any more. You used to have so much spirit when you was little."
"Oh,—spirit! You don't know how much spirit I've had, now."
"Well, I presume not," Whitwell assented.
"I've been thinking," said the girl, after a little pause, "that we shall have to go away from here."
"Well, I guess not," her father began. "Not for no Jeff Dur—"
"Yes, yes. We must! Don't make one talk about it. We'll stay here till
Jackson gets back in June, and then—we must go somewhere else. We'll go
down to Boston, and I'll try to get a place to teach, or something, and
Frank can get a place."
"I presume," Whitwell mused, "that Mr. Westover could—"
"Father!" cried the girl, with an energy that startled him, as she lifted herself on her elbow. "Don't ever think of troubling Mr. Westover! Oh," she lamented, "I was thinking of troubling him myself! But we mustn't, we mustn't! I should be so ashamed!"