"Very well," answered Cynthia. She laid down the whistle beside him on the rail, and went off a little distance and seated herself on a bench. The boy laughed.
"I like that girl," he remarked; "the rest of 'em take everything I give 'em, and ask for more. She's prettier'n any of 'em, too."
"What is your name?" Wetherell asked him, curiously, forgetting his own troubles.
"Bob Worthington."
"Are you the son of Dudley Worthington"
"Everybody asks me that," he said; "I'm tired of it. When I grow up, they'll have to stop it."
"But you should be proud of your father."
"I am proud of him, everybody's proud of him, Brampton's proud of him—he's proud of himself. That's enough, ain't it?" He eyed Wetherell somewhat defiantly, then his glance wandered to Cynthia, and he walked over to her. He threw himself down on the grass in front of her, and lay looking up at her solemnly. For a while she continued to stare inflexibly at the line of market wagons, and then she burst into a laugh.
"Thought you wouldn't hold out forever," he remarked.
"It's because you're so foolish," said Cynthia, "that's why I laughed."
Then she grew sober again and held out her hand to him. "Good-by."