“I'm running a stage to Coniston to-day myself, Lem,” said he “and I'm going to steal your best passenger.”
Lemuel immediately flung down his reins and jumped out of the stage and came up the path and into the entry, where he stood confronting Cynthia.
“Hev you took him, Cynthy?” he demanded.
“Yes, Lem,” she answered, “won't you congratulate me?”
The warm-hearted stage driver did congratulate her in a most unmistakable manner.
“I think a sight of her, Bob,” he said after he had shaken both of Bob's hands and brushed his own eyes with his coat sleeve. “I've knowed her so long—” Whereupon utterance failed him, and he ran down the path and jumped into his stage again and drove off.
And then Cynthia sent Bob on an errand—not a very long one, and while he was gone, she sat down at the table and tried to realize her happiness, and failed. In less than ten minutes Bob had come back with Cousin Ephraim, as fast as he could hobble. He flung his arms around her, stick and all, and he was crying. It is a fact that old soldiers sometimes cry. But his tears did not choke his utterance.
“Great Tecumseh!” said Cousin Ephraim, “so you've went and done it, Cynthy. Siege got a little mite too hot. I callated she'd capitulate in the end, but she held out uncommon long.”
“That she did,” exclaimed Bob, feelingly.
“I—I was tellin' Bob I hain't got nothin' against him,” continued Ephraim.