Cynthia’s impassiveness, her complete poise, had fascinated Miss Duncan with the others.  Had there been nothing beneath that exterior, Janet would never have guessed it, and she would have been quite as happy.  Cynthia saw very clearly that Mr. Worthington or no other man or woman could force Bob to marry Janet.

The next morning, in such intervals as her studies permitted, Janet continued her attentions to Cynthia.  That same morning she had brought a note from her father to Miss Sadler, of the contents of which Janet knew nothing.  Miss Sadler retired into her study to read it, and two newspaper clippings fell out of it under the paper-cutter.  This was the note:—­

   “My dear Miss Sadler: 

“Mrs. Duncan has referred your note to me, and I enclose two clippings which speak for themselves.  Miss Wetherell, I believe, stands in the relation of ward to the person to whom they refer, and her father was a sort of political assistant to this person.  Although, as you say, we are from that part of the country (Miss Sadler bad spoken of the Duncans as the people of importance there), it was by the merest accident that Miss Wetherell’s connection with this Jethro Bass was brought to my notice.

   “Sincerely yours,

   “Alexander Duncan.”

It is pleasant to know that there were people in the world who could snub Miss Sadler; and there could be no doubt, from the manner in which she laid the letter down and took up the clippings, that Miss Sadler felt snubbed:  equally, there could be no doubt that the revenge would fall on other shoulders than Mr. Duncan’s.  And when Miss Sadler proceeded to read the clippings, her hair would have stood on end with horror had it not been so efficiently plastered down.  Miss Sadler seized her pen, and began a letter to Mrs. Merrill.  Miss Sadler’s knowledge of the proprieties—­together with other qualifications—­had made her school what it was.  No Cynthia Wetherells had ever before entered its sacred portals, or should again.

The first of these clippings was the article containing the arraignment of Jethro Bass which Mr. Merrill had shown to his wife, and which had been the excuse for Miss Penniman’s call.  The second was one which Mr. Duncan had clipped from the Newcastle Guardian of the day before, and gave, from Mr. Worthington’s side, a very graphic account of the conflict which was to tear the state asunder.  The railroads were tired of paying toll to the chief of a band of thieves and cutthroats, to a man who had long throttled the state which had nourished him, to—­in short,—­to Jethro Bass.  Miss Sadler was not much interested in the figures and metaphors of political compositions.  Right had found a champion—­the article continued—­in Mr. Isaac D. Worthington of Brampton, president of the Truro Road and owner of large holdings elsewhere.  Mr. Worthington, backed by other respectable property interests, would fight this monster of iniquity to the death, and release the state from his thraldom.  Jethro Bass, the article alleged, was already about his abominable work—­had long been so—­as in mockery of that very vigilance which is said to be the price of liberty.  His agents were busy in every town of the state, seeing to it that the slaves of Jethro Bass should be sent to the next legislature.