He thought Cousin Cynthia--they were always cousins, to the fourth generation--was the sweetest, daintiest, and most winsome thing he had ever seen--and so she was, for his acquaintance with girls had been limited. They looked over the old treasures in the house and thought it wonderful any one should ever go to India and return without being wrecked. They walked about the lovely garden, and he was amazed at her familiarity with flowers and plants he had never seen. Then she took him over to the Uphams, for an old friend came in to play checkers with Cousin Chilian. Polly was bright and merry, but somehow Ben seemed rather captious. Anthony listened with surprise at the bright sayings they flung at one another. The next day he and Cousin Chilian went over topics for examination. His reading had not been extensive but thorough. In mathematics he was excellent. But he found some time to chat with Cynthia, and they both walked down to the warehouse with Cousin Chilian. What a sight it was! He had read of such things, but to see the hundreds of busy men, the great fleet of vessels, the docks piled with all kinds of wares, the boxes and bales lying round in endless confusion. And the great ocean, lost over beyond in the far-off sky. When the two had gone up to Boston, Cynthia felt very lonely. She had been sipping the sweets of unspoken admiration. She saw it in the eyes, in the deference, as if he was almost afraid of her, in the sudden flush when she turned her eyes to him. It was a new kind of worship. She went over to the Uphams. Polly had been having her sampler framed. The acorn border was very pretty in its greens and browns. Then a stiff little tree grew up both sides, about like those that came in the Noah's Ark later on. And between these two trees was worked in cross-stitch: "Mary Upham is my name, America is my nation; Salem is my dwelling place, And Christ is my salvation." "Isn't the frame nice?" she asked. "I made father two shirts and he gave me the frame and the glass. Peter Daly made it. And the frame is oiled and polished until the grain shows--well, almost like watered silk. Gitty Sprague has a beautiful pelisse of gray watered silk. And now I have one thing for my house. I'm beginning to lay by." "Your house!" Cynthia ejaculated in surprise. "Why, yes--when I'm married. You have such lots of things, you'll never have to save up." Cynthia was wondering what she could give away. Not anything that was her father's or her mother's. "I'll paint you a picture. You do so much better needlework than I that I should be ashamed to offer you any." "And the girls will give me some, I know. I'd fifty times rather have the picture. What a nice young fellow that cousin is! I'm glad his name isn't Leverett. There's such a host of them. But I don't like Anthony so well." "That was father's name. It's quite a family name. It always sounds good to me." "And is he going to Harvard?"