“Daddy, why don't you ask Uncle Jethro to help you?”
At the name Wetherell started as if he had had a shock.
“What put him into your head, Cynthia?” he asked sharply. “Why do you call him 'Uncle Jethro'?”
“Because he asked me to. Because he likes me, and I like him.”
The whole thing was a riddle he could not solve—one that was best left alone. They had agreed to walk back the ten miles to Coniston, to save the money that dinner at the hotel would cost. And so they started, Cynthia flitting hither and thither along the roadside, picking the stately purple iris flowers in the marshy places, while Wetherell pondered.
BOOK 2.
CHAPTER IX
When William Wetherell and Cynthia had reached the last turn in the road in Northcutt's woods, quarter of a mile from Coniston, they met the nasal Mr. Samuel Price driving silently in the other direction. The word “silently” is used deliberately, because to Mr. Price appertained a certain ghostlike quality of flitting, and to Mr. Price's horse and wagon likewise. He drew up for a brief moment when he saw Wetherell.