"I shall be all the more welcome, at any rate."

"I don't know whether that is possible, in Karen's case. But did you know she wanted you? — did you know she was ill?"

"Do you suppose nothing but an errand of mercy could bring me?" he answered slightly, though with a little opening of the eyes which Elizabeth afterwards remembered and speculated upon. But for the present she was content with the pleasant implication of his words. Clam was ordered to bring refreshments. These Winthrop declined; he had had all he wanted. Then Elizabeth asked if he would like to see Karen.

She opened the door, which she had taken care to shut, and went in with him.

"Karen — here is the Governor, that you were wishing for."

The old woman turned her face towards them; then stretched out her hand, and spoke with an accent of satisfied longing that went at least to one heart.

"I thought he'd come," she said. "Governor! —"

Winthrop leaned over to speak to her and take her hand. Elizabeth longed to hear what he would say, but she had no business there; she went out, softly closing the door.

She was alone then; and she stood on the hearth before the fire in a little tumult of pleasure, thinking how she should dispose of her guest and what she might do for him.

"Once more I have a chance," she thought; "and I may never in the world have another — He will not come here again before I go back to Mannahatta, he cannot stay in my house there, — and another summer is very far off, and very uncertain. He'll not be very likely to come here — he may be married — and I am very sure I shall not want to see his wife here — I shall not do it. — Though I might ask her for his sake — No! I should better break with him at once and have no more to do with him; it would be only misery." "And what is it now?" said something else. And "Not misery" — was the answer.

"Where will I put him, Miss 'Lizabeth?" said the voice of Clam softly at her elbow. Elizabeth started.

"You must take my room. I will sleep with Mrs. Haye. Clam — what have we got in the house? and what can you do in the way of cooking?"

"I can do some things — for some folks," said Clam. "Wa'n't my cream gravy good the other day?"

"Cream gravy! — with what?"

"Fresh lamb, — mutton, I would say."

"But you have got no fresh mutton now, have you?"

"Maybe Mr. Underhill has," said Clam with a twinkle of her bright eye.

"Mr. Underhill's fresh mutton is on the other side of the river. What have we got on this side?"

"Pretty much of nothing," said Clam, "this side o' Mountain Spring. Anderese ain't no good but to make the fire — it takes mor'n him to find somethin' to put over it."

"Then you'll have to go to Mountain Spring before breakfast, Clam."

"Well, m'm. Who'll take care of the house while I'm gone, Miss 'Lizabeth?"

"Mrs. Cives — can't she?"

"Mis' Cives is gone off home."

"Gone home! — what, to Mountain Spring?"

"That's where her home is, she says."

"What for? and without asking?"

"She wanted to spend to-night at home, she said; and she asked no questions and went."

"To night of all nights! when Karen seems so much worse!"

"It's good we've got the Governor," said Clam.

"But he can't sit up all night with her."

"Guess he will," said Clam. "Pretty much like him. You can sleep in your bed, Miss 'Lizabeth."

"You go and get the room ready — he must not sit up all night — and we'll see in the morning about Mountain Spring. Somebody must go."

"He'll go if you ask him," said Clam. "He'd do the marketing best, now, of all of us. He knows just where everything is. 'Fact is, we want him in the family pretty much all the time."

"Let him know when his room is ready, and offer him refreshments, — and call me if I am wanted."

Clam departed; but Elizabeth, instead of doing the same, took a chair on the kitchen hearth and sat down to await any possible demands upon her. She could hear a quiet sound of talking in Karen's room; now and then the old woman's less regulated voice, more low or more shrill, broke in upon the subdued tones of the other. Elizabeth thought she would have given anything to be a hearer of what was said and listened to there; but the door was shut; it was all for Karen and not for her; and she gave up at last in despair and retreated to her cousin's room.

"So he's come?" said Rose.

"Yes! — he's come. Did you know he was coming?"

"I! — No, — I didn't know he was coming. How should I?"

"Did you think he was coming, Rose?"

"I didn't know but he'd come," said Rose a little awkwardly, "I didn't know anything about it."

Elizabeth chose to ask no further question. Somewhat mortified already, she would not give herself any more certain ground of mortification, not at that time. She would talk no more with Rose. She went to bed; and long after her companion was asleep, she listened for Winthrop's coming out or Clam's colloquy with him, and for any possible enquiry after herself. She heard Clam tap at the door — she heard the undistinguished sound of words, and only gathered that Winthrop probably was declining all proffered comforts and luxuries and choosing to spend the night by Karen's pillow. And weary and sorry and sick of everything in the world, Elizabeth went to sleep.

She waked up in the morning to hear the twittering of the birds around the house. They were singing busily of the coming day, but the day had not come yet; at least it was some time before sunrise. Elizabeth softly got up, softly dressed herself, and went out into the kitchen. That messenger must be despatched for something for breakfast.

She was met by Clam coming in from another door.

"Well, Clam," said her mistress, "where is everybody this morning?"

"I don't know where I am yet," said Clam. "Everybody's abed and asleep, I 'spose. Where be you, Miss 'Lizabeth?"

"Did Mr. Landholm sit up all night?"

"'Most. He said 'twas near upon two o'clock."

"When?"

"When he had done sittin' up, and went to bed."

"How was Karen?"

"I 'spose she was goin', but she ain't in no hurry — she ain't gone yet."

"Then she was no worse?"

"She was better. She was slicked up wonderful after seein' the Governor, she telled me. I wonder who ain't."

"He has not come out of his room yet, I suppose?"

"I hope he haint," said Clam, "or I don' know when we'll get breakfast — 'less he turns to and helps us."

"He will want a good one, after last night, and yesterday's journey. Where's Anderese?"

"He took some bread and milk," said Clam.

"Well — where's Anderese? we must send him to Mountain Spring."

"He's got to go after wood, Miss 'Lizabeth — there ain't three sticks more 'n 'll set the fire agoing."

"Must he! Then you must go, Clam."

"Very good. Who'll set the table, Miss 'Lizabeth?"

"Emma can. Or you can, after you get back."

"And there's the fire to make, and the floor to sweep, and the knives to clean, and the bread to make —"

"Bread! —" said Miss Haye.

"Or cakes," said Clam. "One or t'other 'll be wanted. I don't care which."

"Don't Emma know how?"

"She don't know a thing, but how to put Mrs. Haye's curls over a stick — when she ain't doin' her own."

"Then give me a basket — I'll go to Mountain Spring myself."

"Who'll bring the meat and things home?"

"I will; — or fish, or eggs, — something, whatever I can get."

"It 'll tire you, Miss 'Lizabeth — I guess, before you get back."

"You find me a basket — while I put on my bonnet," said Clam's mistress. And the one thing was done as soon as the other.

"I 'spect I'll wake up some morning and find myself playing on the pianny-forty," said Clam, as she watched her young mistress walking off with the basket.

CHAPTER XVII.

When was old Sherwood's head more quaintly curled? Or looked the earth more green upon the world? Or nature's cradle more enchased and purled? When did the air so smile, the wind so chime, As quiristers of season, and the prime? BEN JONSON.

Miss Haye, however, had never sent her fingers over the keys with more energy, than now her feet tripped over the dry leaves and stones in the path to Mountain Spring. She took a very rough way, through the woods. There was another, much plainer, round by the wagon road; but Elizabeth chose the more solitary and prettier way, roundabout and hard to the foot though it was.

For some little distance there was a rude wagon-track, very rough, probably made for the convenience of getting wood. It stood thick with pretty large stones or heads of rock; but it was softly grass-grown between the stones and gave at least a clear way through the woods, upon which the morning light if not the morning sun beamed fairly. A light touch of white frost lay upon the grass and covered the rocks with bloom, the promise of a mild day. After a little, the roadway descended into a bit of smooth meadow, well walled in with trees, and lost itself there. In the tree-tops the morning sun was glittering; it could not get to the bottom yet; but up there among the leaves it gave a bright shimmering prophecy of what it would do; it was a sparkle of heavenly light touching the earth. Elizabeth had never seen it before; she had never in her life been in the woods at so early an hour. She stood still to look. It was impossible to help feeling the light of that glittering promise; its play upon the leaves was too joyous, too pure, too fresh. She felt her heart grow stronger and her breath come freer. What was the speech of those light- touched leaves, she might not have told; something her spirit took knowledge of while her reason did not. Or had not leisure to do; for if she did not get to Mountain Spring in good season she would not be home for breakfast. Yet she had plenty of time, but she did not wish to run short. So she went on her way.

From the valley meadow for half a mile, it was not much more or much better than a cow-path, beaten a little by the feet of the herdsman seeking his cattle or of an occasional foot- traveller to Mountain Spring. It was very rough indeed. Often Elizabeth must make quite a circuit among cat-briars and huckleberry bushes and young underwood, or keep the path at the expense of stepping up and stepping down again over a great stone or rock blocking up the whole way. Sometimes the track was only marked over the grey lichens of an immense head of granite that refused moss and vegetation of every other kind; sometimes it wound among thick alder bushes by the edge of wet ground; and at all times its course was among a wilderness of uncared-for woodland, overgrown with creepers and vines tangled with underbrush, and thickly strewn with larger and smaller fragments and boulders of granite rock. But how beautiful it was! The alders, reddish and soft-tinted, looked when the sun struck through them as if they were exotics out of witch-land; the Cornus family, from beautiful dogwood a dozen feet high stretching over Elizabeth's head, to little humble nameless plants at her feet, had edged and parted their green leaves with most dainty clear hues of madder lake; white birches and hickories glimmered in the sunlight like trees of gold, the first with stems of silver; sear leaves strewed the way; and fresh pines and hemlocks stretched out their arms amidst the changing foliage, with their evergreen promise and performance. The morning air and the morning walk no doubt had something to do with the effect of the whole; but Elizabeth thought, with all the beauty her eyes had ever seen they had never been more bewitched than they were that day.

With such a mood upon her, it was no wonder that on arriving at Mountain Spring she speedily made out her errand. She found whom and what she had come for; she filled her basket with no loss of time or pleasure; and very proud of her success set out again through the wood-path homeward.

Half way back to the bit of tree-enclosed meadow-ground, the path and the north shore of Shahweetah approached each other, where a little bay curve, no other than the AEgean Sea, swept in among the rocks. Through the stems of the trees Elizabeth could see the blue water with the brightness of the hour upon it. Its sparkle tempted her. She had plenty of time, or she resolved that she had, and she wanted to look at the fair broad view she knew the shore edge would give her. She hesitated, and turned, A few bounding and plunging steps amid rocks and huckleberry bushes brought her where she wished to be. She stood on the border, where no trees came in the way of the northern view. The mountains were full before her, and the wide Shatemuc rolled down between them, ruffled with little waves, every one sparkling cool in the sunlight. Elizabeth looked at the water a minute, and turned to the west. Wut-a- qut-o's head had caught more of the frosts than Shahweetah had felt yet; there were broad belts of buff and yellow along the mountain, even changing into sear where its sides felt the north wind. On all that shore the full sunlight lay. The opposite hills, on the east, were in dainty sunshine and shadow, every undulation, every ridge and hollow, softly marked out. With what wonderful sharp outline the mountain edges rose against the bright sky; how wonderful soft the changes of shade and colour adown their sloping sides; what brilliant little ripples of water rolled up to the pebbles at Elizabeth's feet. She stood and looked at it all, at one thing and the other, half dazzled with the beauty; until she recollected herself, and with a deep sighful expression of thoughts and wishes unknown, turned away to find her path again.

But she could not find it. Whereabouts it was, she was sure; but the where was an unfindable thing. And she dared not strike forward without the track; she might get further and further from it, and never get home to breakfast at all! — There was nothing for it but to grope about seeking for indications; and Miss Haye's eyes were untrained to wood-work. The woodland was a mazy wilderness now indeed. Points of stone, beds of moss, cat-briar vines and huckleberry bushes, in every direction; and between which of them lay that little invisible track of a footpath? The more she looked the more she got perplexed. She could remember no waymarks. The way was all cat-briars, moss, bushes, and rocks; and rocks, bushes, moss and cat-briars were in every variety all around her. She turned her face towards the quarter from which she had come and tried to recognize some tree or waymark she could remember having passed. One part of the wood looked just like another; but for the mountains and the river she could not have told where lay Mountain Spring.

Then a little sound of rustling leaves and crackling twigs reached her ear from behind her.

"There is a cow!" thought Elizabeth; — "now I can find the path by her. But then! — cows don't always —"

Her eye had been sweeping round the woody skirts of her position, in search of her expected four-footed guide, when her thoughts were suddenly brought to a point by seeing a two- footed creature approaching, and one whom she instantly knew.

"It is Winthrop Landholm! — he is going to Mountain Spring to take an early coach, without his breakfast! — Well, you fool, what is it to you?" was the next thought. "What does it signify whether he goes sooner or later, when it would be better for you not to see him at all, if your heart is going to start in that fashion at every time. —"

Meanwhile she was making her way as well as she could, over rocks and briars, towards the new-comer; and did not look up till she answered his greeting —

"Good morning! —"

It was very cheerfully spoken.

"Good morning," said Elizabeth, entangled in a cat-briar, from which with a desperate effort she broke free before any help could be given her.

"Those are naughty things."

"No," said Elizabeth, "they look beautiful now when they are growing tawny, as a contrast with the other creepers and the deep green cedars. And they are a beautiful green at other times."

"Make the best of them. What were you looking at, a minute ago?"

"Looking for my way. I had lost it."

"You don't know it very well, I guess."

"Yes. — No, not very well, but I could follow it, and did, till coming home I thought I had time to look at the view; and then I couldn't find it again. I got turned about."

"You were completely turned about when I saw you."

"O I was not going that way — I knew better than that. I was trying to discover some waymark."

"How did you get out of the way?"

"I went to look at the view — from the water's edge there."

"Have you a mind to go back to the river edge again? I have not seen that view in a long while. I shall not lose the path."

"Then you cannot be intending to go by an early coach," thought Elizabeth, as she picked her way back over rocks and moss to the water's edge. But Winthrop knew the ground, and brought her a few steps further to a broad standing-place of rock where the look-out was freer. There was again before her the sparkling river, the frost-touched mountain, the sharp outlines, the varying shadows, that she had looked at a few minutes back. Elizabeth looked at them again, thinking now not of them but of something different at every turn.

"The rock is too wet," said Winthrop, "or I should propose your sitting down."

"You certainly must have had your breakfast," thought Elizabeth, "and not know that I haven't had mine."

"I don't want to sit down," she said quietly. A pang of fear again came to her heart, that in another minute or two he would be off to Mountain Spring. But his next movement negatived that. It was to take her basket, which she had till then tried to carry so that it would not be noticed. She was thankful he did not know what was in it.

"Do you often take such early walks as this?"

"No, not often," said Elizabeth guiltily. "I row more."

"So early?"

"No, not generally. Though there is no time more pleasant."

"You are looking well," he said gravely. "Better than I ever saw you look."

"It's very odd," thought Elizabeth, — "it must be the flush of my walk — I didn't look so this morning in the glass — nor last night. —" But she looked up and said boldly, laughing,

"I thought you came here to see the prospect, Mr. Landholm."

"I have been looking at it," he said quietly. "I need not say anything about that — it never changes."

"Do you mean that I do?" said Elizabeth.

"Everybody ought to change for the better, always," he said with a little smile, — "so I hope you are capable of that."

Elizabeth thought in her heart, though she was no better, yet that she had truly changed for the better, since former times; she half wanted to tell him so, the friend who had had most to do with changing her. But a consciousness of many things and an honest fear of speaking good of herself, kept her lips shut; though her heart beat with the wish and the doubt. Winthrop's next words in a few minutes decided it.

"What is the fact, Miss Elizabeth?"

Elizabeth hesitated, — and hesitated. He looked at her.

"I hope I am changed, a little, Mr. Landholm; but there is a great deal more to change!"

Her face was very ingenuous and somewhat sorrowful, as she turned it towards him; but his looked so much brighter than she had ever seen it, that the meeting of the two tides was just more than her spirits could bear. The power of commanding herself, which for the last few minutes had been growing less and less, gave way. Her look shrank from his. Winthrop had come nearer to her, and had clasped the hand that was nearest him and held it in his own. It was a further expression of the pleasure she had seen in his smile. Elizabeth was glad that her own face was hidden by her sunbonnet. She would not have either its pain or its pleasure to be seen. Both were sharp enough just then. But strong necessity made her keep outwardly quiet.

"What does the change date from?"

"As to time, do you mean?" said Elizabeth struggling.

"As to time, and motive."

"The time is but lately," she said with a tremulous voice, — "though I have thought about it, more or less, for a good while."

"Thought what?"

"Felt that you were right and I was wrong, Mr. Landholm."

"What made you think you were wrong?"

"I felt that I was — I knew it."

"What makes you think you are changed now?"

"I hardly dare speak of it — it is so little."

"You may, I hope, — to me."

"It is hardly I that am changed, so much as my motives and views."

"And they — how?" he said after waiting a moment.

"It seems to me," she said slowly, "lately, that I am willing to go by a new rule of life from that I used to follow."

"What is the new rule?"

"Well — Not my own will, Mr. Landholm."

He stood silent a little while. Her hand was still held in his. Elizabeth would have thought he had forgotten it, but that it was held in a free clasp which did not seem to imply forgetfulness. It was enough to forbid it on her part.

"How does the new rule work?" was his next question.

"It works hard, Mr. Landholm!" said Elizabeth, turning her face suddenly upon him for an instant. His look was bright, but she felt that her own eyes were swimming.

"Do you know that I am very glad to hear all this?" he said after another little pause.

"Yes," said Elizabeth under breath, — "I supposed you would be. — I knew you would."

"I hope you like being catechized," he said in a lighter tone.

"Yes — I do — by anybody that has a right to do it."

"I have taken the right."

"Certainly! — You have the best in the world."

"I am glad you think so, though I don't exactly see how you make it out."

"Why! — it's not necessary to explain how I make it out," said Elizabeth.

"No, — especially as I am going to ask you to give it to me for the future."

"What?" — said she looking at him.

He became grave.

"Miss Haye, I have a great boon to ask of you."

"Well?" — said Elizabeth eagerly. "I am very glad you have!"

"Why?"

"Why? — why, because it's pleasant."

"You don't know what it is, yet."

"No," said Elizabeth, — "but my words are safe."

"I want you to give me something."

"You preface it as if it were some great thing, and you look as if it was nothing," thought Elizabeth a little in wonderment. But she said only,

"You may have it. What is it?"

"Guess."

"I can't possibly."

"You are incautious. You don't know what you are giving away."

"What is it?" said Elizabeth a little impatiently.

"Yourself."

Elizabeth looked quick away, not to see anything, with the mind's eye or any other, for a blur came over both. She was no fainter; she was strong of mind and body; but the one and the other were shaken; and for that bit of time, and it was several minutes, her senses performed no office at all. And when consciousness of distinct things began to come back, there came among all her other feelings an odd perverse fear of shewing the uppermost one or two, and a sort of mortified unreadiness to strike her colours and yield at once without having made a bit of fight for it. Yet these were not the uppermost feelings, but they were there, among them and struggling with them. She stood quite still, her face hidden by her sunbonnet, and her companion was quite still too, with her hand still in his, held in the same free light clasp; and she had a vexed consciousness of his being far the cooler of the two. While she was thus silent, however, Elizabeth's head, and her very figure, was bowed lower and lower with intensity of feeling.

"What is the matter?" Winthrop said; and the tone of those words conquered her. The proud Miss Haye made a very humble answer.

"I am very glad, Mr. Landholm — but I am not good enough."

"For what?"

But Elizabeth did not answer.

"I will take my risk of that," said he kindly. "Besides, you have confessed the power of changing."

The risk, or something else, seemed to lie upon Elizabeth's mind, from the efforts she was making to overcome emotion. Winthrop observed her for a moment.

"But you have not spoken, yet," said he. "I want a confirmation of my grant."

She knew from his tone that his mood was the very reverse of hers; and it roused the struggle again. "Provoking man!" she thought, "why couldn't he ask me in any other way! — And why need he smile when I am crying! —" She commanded herself to raise her head, however, though she did not dare look.

"Am I to have it?"

"To have what?"

"An answer."

"I don't know what it's to be, Mr. Landholm," Elizabeth stammered. "What do you want?"

"Will you give me what I asked you for?"

"I thought you knew you had it already," she said, not a little vexed to have the words drawn from her.

"It is mine, then?"

"Yes —"

"Then," said he, coming in full view of her blushing face and taking the other hand, — "what are you troubled for?"

Elizabeth could not have borne it one instant, to meet his eye, without breaking into a flood of tears she had no hands to cover. As her only way of escape, she sprang to one side freeing one of her hands on the sudden, and jumped down the rock, muttering something very unintelligibly about 'breakfast.' But her other hand was fast still, and so was she at the foot of the rock.

"Stop," said Winthrop, — "we must take this basket along. — I don't know if there is anything very precious in it." —

He reached after it as he spoke, and then they went on; and by the help of his hand her backward journey over rocks, stones, and trunks of trees in the path, was easily and lightly made; till they reached the little bit of meadow. Which backward journey Elizabeth accomplished in about two minutes and a quarter. There Winthrop transferred to his arm the hand that had rested in his, and walked more leisurely.

"Are you in such a hurry for your breakfast?" said he. "I have had mine."

"Had it! — before you came out?"

"No," — said he smiling, — "since."

"Are you laughing at me? — or have you had it?" said Elizabeth looking puzzled.

"Both," said Winthrop. "What are you trembling so for?"

It hushed Elizabeth again, till they got quit of the meadow, and began more slowly still, the ascent of the rough half-made wheel-road.

"Miss Haye —" said Winthrop gently.

She paused in her walk, looking at him.

"What are you thinking of?"

"Thinking of! —"

"Yes. You don't look as happy as I feel."

"I am," — she said.

"How do you know?"

What a colour spread over Elizabeth's face! But she laughed too, so perhaps his end was gained.

"I was thinking," she said, with the desperate need of saying something, — "a little while ago, when you were helping me through the woods, — how a very few minutes before, I had been so quite alone in the world."

"Don't forget there is one arm that never can fail you," he replied gravely. "Mine may."

Elizabeth looked at him rather timidly, and his face changed.

"There was no harm in that," he said, with so bright an expression as she had never before seen given to her. "What will you say, if I tell you that I myself at that same time was thinking over in my mind very much the same thing — with relation to myself, I mean."

Elizabeth's heart beat and her breath came short. That was what she had never thought of. Like many another woman, what he was to her, she knew well; what she might be to him, it had never entered her head to think. It seemed almost a new and superfluous addition to her joy, yet not superfluous from that time forth for ever. Once known, it was too precious a thought to be again untasted. She hung her head over it; she stepped all unwittingly on rocks and short grass and wet places and dry, wherever she was led. It made her heart beat thick to think she could be so valued. How was it possible! How she wished — how keenly — that she could have been of the solid purity of silver or gold, to answer the value put upon her. But instead of that — what a far-off difference! Winthrop could not know how great, or he would never have said that, or felt it; nor could he. What about her could possibly have attracted it?

She had not much leisure to ponder the question, for her attention was called off to answer present demands. And there was another subject for pondering — Winthrop did not seem like the same person she had known under the same name, he was so much more free and pleasant and bright to talk than he had ever been to her before, or in her observation, to anybody. He talked to a very silent listener, albeit she lost never a word nor a tone. She wondered at him and at everything, and stepped along wondering, with a heart too full to speak, almost too full to hide its agitation.

They were nearing home, they had got quit of the woodway road, and were in a cleared field, grown with tall cedars, which skirted the river. Half way across it, Elizabeth's foot paused, and came to a full stop. What was the matter?

Elizabeth faced round a little, as if addressing her judge, though she spoke without lifting her eyes.

"Mr. Landholm — do you know that I am full of faults?"

"Yes."

"And aren't you afraid of them?"

"No, — not at all," he said, smiling, Elizabeth knew. But she answered very gravely,

"I am."

"Which is the best reason in the world why I should not be. It is written 'Blessed is the man that feareth always.'"

"I am afraid — you don't know me."

"I don't know," said he smiling. "You haven't told me anything new yet."

"I am afraid you think of me, somehow, better than I deserve."

"What is the remedy for that?"

Elizabeth hesitated, with an instant's vexed consciousness of his provoking coolness; then looking up met his eye for a second, laughed, and went on perfectly contented. But she wondered with a little secret mortification, that Winthrop was as perfectly at home and at his ease in the newly established relations between them as if they had subsisted for six months. "Is it nothing new to him?" she said to herself. "Did he know that it only depended on him to speak? — or is it his way with all the world?" It was not that she was undervalued, or slightly regarded, but valued and regarded with such unchanged self-possession. Meanwhile they reached the edge of the woodland, from which the house and garden were to be seen close at hand.

"Stay here," said Winthrop; — "I will carry this basket in and let them know you may be expected to breakfast."

"But if you do that, —" said Elizabeth colouring —

"What then?"

"I don't know what they will think."

"They may think what they have a mind," said he with a little bit of a smile again. "I want to speak to you."

Elizabeth winced a bit. He was gone, and she stood thinking, among other things, that he might have asked what she would like. And how did he know but breakfast was ready then? Or did he know everything? And how quietly and unqualifiedly, to be sure, he had taken her consignment that morning. She did not know whether to like it or not like it, — till she saw him coming again from the house.

"After all," said he, "I think we had better go in and take breakfast, and talk afterwards. It seems to be in a good state of forwardness."

CHAPTER XVIII.

From eastern quarters now The sun's up-wandering, His rays on the rock's brow And hill-side squandering; Be glad my soul! and sing amidst thy pleasure, Fly from the house of dust, Up with thy thanks and trust To heaven's azure! THOMAS KINGO.

It was sufficiently proven at that breakfast, to Elizabeth's satisfaction, that it is possible for one to be at the same time both very happy and a little uncomfortable. She had a degree of consciousness upon her that amounted to that, more especially as she had a vexed knowledge that it was shared by at least one person in the room. The line of Clam's white teeth had never glimmered more mischievously. Elizabeth dared not look at her. And she dared not look at Winthrop, and she dared not look at Rose. But Rose, to do her justice, seemed to be troubled with no consciousness beyond what was usual with her, and which generally concerned only herself; and she and Winthrop kept up the spirit of talk with great ease all breakfast time.

"Now how in the world are we going to get away?" thought Elizabeth when breakfast was finishing; — "without saying flat and bald why we do it. Rose will want to go too, for she likes Winthrop quite well enough for that." —

And with the consciousness that she could not make the slightest manoeuvre, Elizabeth rose from table.

"How soon must you go, Mr. Landholm?" said Rose winningly.

"Presently, ma'am."

"I am sorry you must go so soon! But we haven't a room to ask you to sit down in, if you were to stay."

"I am afraid I shouldn't wait to be asked, if I stayed," said Winthrop. "But as I am not to sit down again — Miss Haye — if you will put on your bonnet and give me your company a little part of my way, I will keep my promise."

"What promise?" said Rose.

"I will do better than my promise, for I mean to shew Miss Haye a point of her property which perhaps she has not looked at lately."

"Oh will you shew it to me too?" said Rose.

"I will if there is time enough after I have brought Miss Haye back — I can't take both at once."

Rose looked mystified, and Elizabeth very glad to put on her bonnet, was the first out of the house; half laughing, and half trembling with the excitement of getting off.

"There is no need to be in such a hurry," said Winthrop as he came up, — "now that breakfast is over."

Elizabeth was silent, troubled with that consciousness still, though now alone with the subject of it. He turned off from the road, and led her back into the woods a little way, in the same path by which she had once gone hunting for a tree to cut down.

"It isn't as pretty a time of day as when I went out this morning," she said, forcing herself to say something.

But Winthrop seemed in a state of pre-occupation too; till they reached a boulder capped with green ferns.

"Now give me your hand," said he. "Can you climb?"

They turned short by the boulder and began to mount the steep rugged hill-path, down which he had once carried his little sister. Elizabeth could make better footing than poor Winifred; and very soon they stood on the old height from which they could see the fair Shatemuc coming down between the hills and sweeping round their own little woody Shahweetah and off to the South Bend. The sun was bright on all the land now, though the cedars shielded the bit of hill-top well; and Wut- a-qut-o looked down upon them in all his gay Autumn attire. The sun was bright, but the air was clear and soft and free from mist and cloud and obscurity, as no sky is but October's.

"Sit down," said Winthrop, throwing himself on the bank which was carpeted with very short green grass.

"I would just as lieve stand," said Elizabeth.

"I wouldn't as lieve have you. You've been on your feet long enough to-day. Come! —"

She yielded to the gentle pulling of her hand, and sat down on the grass; half amused and half fretted; wondering what he was going to say next. Winthrop was silent for a little space; and Elizabeth sat looking straight before her, or rather with her head a little turned to the right, from her companion, towards Wut-a-qut-o; the deep sides of her sun-bonnet shutting out all but a little framed picture of the gay woody foreground, a bit of the blue river, and the mountain's yellow side.

"How beautiful it was all down there, three or four hours ago," said Elizabeth.

"I didn't know you had so much romance in your disposition — to go there this morning to meet me."

"I didn't go there to meet you."

"Yes you did."

"I didn't!" said Elizabeth. "I never thought of such a thing as meeting you."

"Nevertheless, in the regular chain and sequence of events, you went there to meet me — if you hadn't gone you wouldn't have met me."

"O, if you put it in that way," said Elizabeth, — "there's no harm in that."

"There is no harm in it at all. Quite the contrary."

"I think it was the prettiest walk I ever took in my life," said Elizabeth, — "before that, I mean," she added blushing.

"My experience would say, after it," said Winthrop, in an amused tone.

"It was rather a confused walk after that," said Elizabeth. "I never was quite so much surprised."

"You see I had not that disadvantage. I was only — gratified."

"Why," said Elizabeth, her jealous fear instantly starting again, "you didn't know what my answer would be before you asked me?"

She waited for Winthrop's answer, but none came. Elizabeth could not bear it.

"Did you?" she said, looking round in her eagerness.

He hesitated an instant, and then answered,

"Did you?"

Elizabeth had no words. Her face sought the shelter of her sunbonnet again, and she almost felt as if she would have liked to seek the shelter of the earth bodily, by diving down into it. Her brain was swimming. There was a rush of thoughts and ideas, a train of scattered causes and consequences, which then she had no power to set in order; but the rush almost overwhelmed her, and what was wanting, shame added. She was vexed with herself for her jealousy in divining and her impatience in asking foolish questions; and in her vexation was ready to be vexed with Winthrop, — if she only knew how. She longed to lay her head down in her hands, but pride kept it up. She rested her chin on one hand and wondered when Winthrop would speak again, — she could not, — and what he would say; gazing at the blue bit of water and gay mountain- side, and thinking that she was not giving him a particularly favourable specimen of herself that morning, and vexed out of measure to think it.

Then upon this, a very quietly spoken "Elizabeth!" — came to her ear. It was the first time Winthrop had called her so; but that was not all. Quietly spoken as it was, there was not only a little inquiry, there was a little amusement and a little admonition, in the tone. It stirred Elizabeth to her spirit's depths, but with several feelings; and for the life of her she could not have spoken.

"What is the reason you should hide your face so carefully from me?" he went on presently, much in the same tone. "Mine is open to you — it isn't fair play."

Elizabeth could have laughed if she had not been afraid of crying. She kept herself hid in her sunbonnet and made no reply.

"Suppose you take that thing off, and let me look at you."

"It shades my face from the sun."

"The cedar trees will do that for you."

"No — they wouldn't."

And she kept her face steadily fixed upon the opposite shore, only brought straight before her now; thinking to herself that she would carry this point at any rate. But in another minute she was somewhat astounded to find Winthrop's left hand, he was supporting himself carelessly on his right, quietly, very quietly, untying her sunbonnet strings; and then rousing himself, with the other hand he lifted the bonnet from her head. It gave a full view then of hair in very nice order and a face not quite so; for the colour had now flushed to her very temples with more feelings than one, and her eye was downcast, not caring to shew its revelations. She knew that Winthrop took an observation of all, to his heart's content; but she could not look at him for an instant. Then without saying anything, he got up and went off to a little distance where he made himself busy among some of the bushes and vines which were gay with the fall colouring Elizabeth sat drooping her head on her knees, for she could not absolutely hold it up. She looked at her sunbonnet lying on the bank beside her; but it is not an improper use of language to say that she dared not put it on.

"I have met my master now," she thought, and her eyes sparkled, — "once for all — if I never did before. — What a fool I am!"

For she knew, she acknowledged to herself at the same moment, that she did not like him the less for it — she liked him exceedingly the more; in spite of a twinge of deep mortification about it, and though there was bitter shame that he should know or guess any of her feeling. If her eyes sparkled, they sparkled through tears.

The tears were got rid of, for Winthrop came back and threw himself down again. Then with that he began to put wreaths of the orange and red winterberries and sprays of wych hazel and bits of exquisite ivy, one after the other, into her hands. Her hands took them mechanically, one after the other. Her eyes buried themselves in them. She wished for her sunbonnet shield again.

"What do you bring these to me for?" she said rather abruptly.

"Don't you like to have them?" said he, putting into her fingers another magnificent piece of Virginia creeper.

"Yes indeed — very much — but —"

"It will be some time before I see you again," said he as he added the last piece of his bunch. "These will be all gone."

"Some time!" said Elizabeth.

"Yes. There is work on my hands down yonder that admits of no delay. I could but just snatch time enough to come up here."

"I am very much obliged to you for these!" said Elizabeth, returning to her bunch of brilliant vine branches.

"You can pay me for them in any way you please."

The colour started again, but it was a very gentle, humble, and frank look which she turned round upon him. His was bright enough.

"How soon do you think of coming to Mannahatta?"

"I don't know, —" said Elizabeth, not choosing to say exactly the words that came to her tongue.

"If I could be here too, I should say this is the best place."

"Can't you come often enough?"

"How often would be often enough?" said he with an amused look.

"Leave definitions on one side, and please answer me."

"Willingly. I leave the definition on your side. I don't like to speak in the dark."

"Well, can't you come tolerably often?" said Elizabeth colouring.

He smiled.

"Not for some time. My hands are very full just now."

"You contrive to have them so always, don't you?"

"I like to have them so. It is not always my contrivance."

"What has become of that suit — I don't know the names now — in which you were engaged two or three years ago — in which you took so many objections, and the Chancellor allowed them all, against Mr. Brick?"

"Ryle?"

"Yes! — I believe that's the name."

"For a man called Jean Lessing?"

"I don't know anything about Lessing — I think Ryle was the other name —You were against Ryle."

"Lessing was Mr. Herder's brother-in-law."

"I don't remember Mr. Herder's brother-in-law — though I believe Mr. Herder did have something to do with the case, or some interest in it."

"How did you know anything about it?"

"You haven't answered me," said Elizabeth, laughing and colouring brightly.

"One question is as good as another," said Winthrop smiling.

"But one answer is much better than another," said Elizabeth in a little confusion.

"The suit against Ryle was very successful. I recovered for him some ninety thousand dollars."

"Ninety thousand dollars!" — Her thoughts took somewhat of a wide circle and came back.

"The amount recovered is hardly a fair criterion of the skill employed, in every instance. I must correct your judgment."

"I know more about it than that," said Elizabeth. "How far your education has gone! — and mine is only just beginning."

"I should be sorry to think mine was much more than beginning. Now do you know we must go down? — for I must be at Mountain Spring to meet the stage-coach."

"How soon?" said Elizabeth springing up.

"There is time enough, but I want not to hurry you down the hill."

He had put her sunbonnet on her head again and was retying it.

"Mr. Landholm —"

"You must not call me that," he said.

"Let me, till I can get courage to call you something else."

"How much courage does it want?"

"If you don't stop," said Elizabeth, her eyes filling with tears, "I shall not be able to say one word of what I want to say."

He stood still, holding the strings of her sunbonnet in either hand. Elizabeth gathered breath, or courage, and went on.

"A little while ago I was grieving myself to think that you did not know me — now, I am very much ashamed to think that you do." —

He did not move, nor she.

"I know I am not worthy to have you look at me. My only hope is, that you will make me better."

The bonnet did not hide her face this time. He looked at it a little, at the simplicity of ingenuous trouble which was working in it, — and then pushing the bonnet a little back, kissed first one cheek and then the lips, which by that time were bent down almost out of reach. But he reached them; and Elizabeth was obliged to take her answer, in which there was as much of gentle forgiveness and promise as of affection.

"You see what you have to expect, if you talk to me in this strain," said he lightly. "I think I shall not be troubled with much more of it. I don't like to leave you in this frame of mind. I would take you to Mountain Spring in the boat — if I could bring you back again."

"I could bring myself back," said Elizabeth. They were going down the hill; in the course of which, it may be remarked, Winthrop had no reason to suppose that she once saw anything but the ground.

"I am afraid you are too tired."

"No indeed I am not. I should like it — if there is time."

"Go in less time that way than the other."

So they presently reached the lower ground.

"Do you want anything from the house?" said Winthrop as they came near it.

"Only the oars — If you will get those, I will untie the boat."

"Then I'll not get the oars. I'll get them on condition that you stand still here."

So they went down together to the rocks, and Elizabeth put herself in the stern of the little boat and they pushed off.

To any people who could think of anything but each other, October offered enough to fill eyes, ears, and understanding; that is, if ears can be filled with silence, which perhaps is predicable. Absolute silence on this occasion was wanting, as there was a good deal of talking; but for eyes and understanding, perhaps it may safely be said that those of the two people in the Merry-go-round took the benefit of everything they passed on their way; with a reduplication of pleasure which arose from the throwing and catching of that ball of conversation, in which, like the herb-stuffed ball of the Arabian physician of old, — lay perdu certain hidden virtues, of sympathy. But Shahweetah's low rocky shore never offered more beauty to any eyes, than to theirs that day, as they coasted slowly round it. Colours, colours! If October had been a dyer, he could not have shewn a greater variety of samples.

There were some locust trees in the open cedar-grown field by the river; trees that Mr. Landholm had planted long ago. They were slow to turn, yet they were changing. One soft feathery head was in yellowish green, another of more neutral colour; and blending with them were the tints of a few reddish soft- tinted alders below. That group was not gay. Further on were a thicket of dull coloured alders at the edge of some flags, and above them blazed a giant huckleberry bush in bright flame colour; close by that were the purple red tufts of some common sumachs — the one beautifully rich, the other beautifully striking. A little way from them stood a tulip tree, its green changing with yellow. Beyond came cedars, in groups, wreathed with bright tawny grape vines and splendid Virginia creepers, now in full glory. Above their tops, on the higher ground, was a rich green belt of pines — above them, the changing trees of the forest again.

Here shewed an elm its straw-coloured head — there stood an ash in beautiful grey-purple; very stately. The cornus family in rich crimson — others crimson purple; maples shewing yellow and flame-colour and red all at once; one beauty still in green was orange-tipped with rich orange. The birches were a darker hue of the same colour; hickories bright as gold.

Then came the rocks, and rocky precipitous point of Shahweetah; and the echo of the row-locks from the wall. Then the point was turned, and the little boat sought the bottom of the bay, nearing Mountain Spring all the while. The water was glassy smooth; the boat went — too fast.

Down in the bay the character of the woodland was a little different. It was of fuller growth, and with many fewer evergreens, and some addition to the variety of the changing deciduous leaves. When they got quite to the bottom of the bay and were coasting along close under the shore, there was perhaps a more striking display of Autumn's glories at their side, than the rocks of Shahweetah could shew them. They coasted slowly along, looking and talking. The combinations were beautiful.

There was the dark fine bright red of some pepperidges shewing behind the green of an unchanged maple; near by stood another maple the leaves of which were all seemingly withered, a plain reddish light wood-colour; while below its withered foliage a thrifty poison sumach wreathing round its trunk and lower branches, was in a beautiful confusion of fresh green and the orange and red changes, yet but just begun. Then another slight maple with the same dead wood-coloured leaves, into which to the very top a Virginia creeper had twined itself, and that was now brilliantly scarlet, magnificent in the last degree. Another like it a few trees off — both reflected gorgeously in the still water. Rock oaks were part green and part sear; at the edge of the shore below them a quantity of reddish low shrubbery; the cornus, dark crimson and red brown, with its white berries shewing underneath, and more pepperidges in very bright red. One maple stood with its leaves parti-coloured reddish and green — another with beautiful orange-coloured foliage. Ashes in superb very dark purple; they were all changed. Then alders, oaks, and chestnuts still green. A kaleidoscope view, on water and land, as the little boat glided along sending rainbow ripples in towards the shore.

In the bottom of the bay Winthrop brought the boat to land, under a great red oak which stood in its fair dark green beauty yet at the very edge of the water. Mountain Spring was a little way off, hidden by an outsetting point of woods. As the boat touched the tree-roots, Winthrop laid in the oars and came and took a seat by the boat's mistress.

"Are you going to walk to Mountain Spring the rest of the way?" she said.

"No."

"Will the stage-coach take you up here?"

"If it comes, it will. What are you going to do with yourself now, till I see you again?"

"There's enough to do," said Elizabeth sighing. "I am going to try to behave myself. How soon will the coach be here now?"

"I think, not until I have seen you about half way over the bay on your way home."

"O you will not see me," said Elizabeth. "I am not going before the coach does."

"Yes you are."

"What makes you think so?"

"Because it will not come till I have seen you at least, I should judge, half across the bay."

"But I don't want to go."

"You are so unaccustomed to doing things you don't want to do, that it is good discipline for you."

"Do you mean that seriously?" said Elizabeth, looking a little disturbed.

"I mean it half seriously," said he laughing, getting up to push the boat to shore, which had swung a little off.

"But nobody likes, or wants, self-imposed discipline," said Elizabeth.

"This isn't self-imposed — I impose it," said he throwing the rope round a branch of the tree. "I don't mean anything that need make you look so," he added as he came back to his place.

Elizabeth looked up and her brow cleared.

"I dare say you are right," she said. "I will do just as you please."

"Stop a minute," said he gently taking her hand — "What do you 'dare say' I am right about?"

"This — or anything," Elizabeth said, her eye wavering between the water and the shore.

"I don't want you to think that."

"But how am I going to help it?"

He smiled a little and looked grave too.

"I am going to give you a lesson to study."

"Well? —" said Elizabeth with quick pleasure; and she watched, very like a child, while Winthrop sought in his pocket and brought out an old letter, tore off a piece of the back and wrote on his knee with a pencil.

Then he gave it to her.

But it was the precept, —

'Little children, keep yourselves from idols.'

Elizabeth's face changed, and her eyes lifted themselves not up again. The colour rose, and spread, and deepened, and her head only bent lower down over the paper. That thrust was with a barbed weapon. And there was a profound hush, and a bended head and a pained brow, till a hand came gently between her eyes and the paper and occupied the fingers that held it. It was the same hand that her fancy had once seen full of character — she saw it again now; her thoughts made a spring hack to that time and then to this. She looked up.

It was a look to see. There was a witching mingling of the frank, the childlike, and the womanly, in her troubled face; frankness that would not deny the truth that her monitor seemed to have read, a childlike simplicity of shame that he should have divined it, and a womanly self-respect that owned it had nothing to be ashamed of. These were not all the feelings that were at work, nor that shewed their working; and it was a face of brilliant expression that Elizabeth lifted to her companion. In the cheeks the blood spoke brightly; in the eyes, fire; there was more than one tear there, too; and the curve of the lips was unbent with a little tremulous play. Winthrop must have been a man of self-command to have stood it; but he looked apparently no more concerned than if old Karen had lifted up her face at him.

"Do you know," she said, and the moved line of the lips might plainly be seen, — "you are making it the more hard for me to learn your lesson, even in the very giving it me?"

"What shall I do?"

Elizabeth hesitated, and conquered herself.

"I guess you needn't do anything," she said half laughing. "I'll try and do my part."

There was a little answer of the face then, that sent Elizabeth's eyes to the ground.

"What do you mean by these words?" she said looking at them again.

"I don't mean anything. I simply give them to you."

"Yes, and I might see an old musket standing round the house; but if you take it up and present it at me, it is fair to ask, what you mean?"

"It is not an old musket, to begin with," said Winthrop laughing; "and if it goes off, it will shoot you through the heart."

"You have the advantage of me entirely, this morning!" said Elizabeth. "I give up. I hope the next time you have the pleasure of seeing me, I shall be myself."

"I hope so. I intend to keep my identity. Now as that stage- coach will not come till you get half over the bay —"

And a few minutes thereafter, the little boat was skimming back for the point of Shahweetah, though not quite so swiftly as it had come. But Elizabeth was not a mean oarsman; and in good time she got home, and moored the Merry-go-round in its place.

She was walking up to the house then, in very happy mood, one hand depending musingly at either string of her sunbonnet, when she was met by her cousin.

"Well," said Rose, — "have you been out in the woods all this while?"

"No."

"I suppose it's all settled between you and Mr. Landholm?"

Elizabeth stood an instant, with hands depending as aforesaid, and then with a little inclination of her person, somewhat stately and more graceful, gave Rose to understand, that she had no contradiction to make to this insinuation.

"Is it!" said Rose. "Did he come up for that?"

"I suppose you know what he came for better than I do."

"Did you know I wrote a letter to him?"

"I guessed it afterwards. Rose!" — said Elizabeth suddenly, "there was nothing but about Karen in it?"

"Nothing in the world!" said Rose quickly. "What should there be?"

"What did you write for?"

"I was frightened to death, and I wanted to see somebody; and I knew you wouldn't send for him. Wasn't it good I did! —"

Rose clapped her hands. The colour in Elizabeth's face was gradually getting brilliant. She passed on.

"And now you' ll live in Mannahatta?"

Elizabeth did not answer.

"And will you send for old Mr. Landholm to come back and take care of this place again?"

"Hush, Rose! — Mr. Landholm will do what he pleases."

"You don't please about it, I suppose?"

"Yes I do, Rose, — not to talk at all on the subject!"

THE END.



PRINTED BY BERNHARD TAUCHNITZ.



Typographical errors silently corrected:

volume 1 chapter 1 : to give you the best ; silently corrected as to give you the best,

chapter 1 : Winthrops eyes silently corrected as Winthrop's eyes

chapter 2 : we will launch, A vessel silently corrected as we will launch A vessel

chapter 5 : William what?" silently corrected as "William what?"

chapter 7 : For ought I see silently corrected as For aught I see

chapter 8 : certainly very pretty, silently corrected as certainly very pretty.

chapter 10 : 'It was a soft grey day silently corrected as It was a soft grey day

chapter 10 : It will find out more silently corrected as I will find out more

chapter 13 : repay you; my dear silently corrected as repay you, my dear

chapter 17 : of no use to you; silently corrected as of no use to you,

chapter 18 : they all fight silently corrected as "they all fight

chapter 20 : very unsatisfactory? silently corrected as very unsatisfactory!

chapter 24 : used depatch silently corrected as used despatch

chapter 26 : "Winnie's eye keenly silently corrected as Winnie's eye keenly



volume 2 chapter 4 : But we'll come silently corrected as "But we'll come

chapter 5 : do you s'pose, Miss 'Lisabeth silently corrected as do you s'pose, Miss 'Lizabeth

chapter 7 : ridden alternately. silently corrected as ridden alternately."

chapter 9 : and then he asked. silently corrected as and then he asked,

chapter 10 : that "for ever' rest silently corrected as that 'for ever' rest

chapter 15 : "Karen's reply silently corrected as Karen's reply

chapter 15 : I'll see to her.. silently corrected as I'll see to her.

THE END