"What terms?"

"False pretences."

"What false pretences?"

"Asking the hand, when you only want the key that is in it. Professing to give yourself, when in truth your purpose is to give nothing that is not bought and paid for."

Rufus looked very grave and somewhat disturbed.

"That's a very hard characterizing of the matter, Governor," said he. "I don't think I deserve it."

"I hope you don't," said his brother.

Rufus began again to measure the little apartment with his long steps.

"But this kind of thing is done every day, Winthrop."

"By whom?" said Winthrop.

"Why! — by very good men; — by everybody."

"Not by everybody."

"By what sort of people is it not done?"

"By you and me," said Winthrop smiling.

"You think then that a poor man should never marry a rich woman?"

"Never, — unless he can forget that she is rich and he poor."

Rufus walked for some time in silence.

"Well," he said, in a tone between dry and injured, — "I am going off to the West again, luckily; and I shall have no opportunity for the present to disturb you by making false pretences, of any sort."

"Is opportunity all that you lack?" said Winthrop looking up, and with so simple an expression that Rufus quitted his walk and his look together.

"Why did you never make trial for yourself, Winthrop?" he said. "You have a remarkably fine chance; and fine opening too, I should think. You are evidently very well received down yonder."

"I have a theory of my own too, on the subject," said Winthrop, — "somewhat different from yours, but still enough to work by."

"What's that?"

"I have no mind to marry any woman who is unwilling to be obliged to me."

Rufus looked at his brother and at the fireplace awhile in gravity.

"You are proud," he said at length.

"I must have come to it by living so high in the world," said Winthrop.

"So high?" — said Rufus.

"As near the sun as I can get. I thought it was very near, some time in August last."

Winthrop laid by his book; and the two young men stood several minutes, quite silent, on opposite sides of the hearth, with folded hands and meditative countenances; but the face of the one looked like the muddy waters of the Shatemuc tossed and tumbled under a fierce wind; the other's was calm and steady as Wut-a-qut-o's brow.

"So you won't have any woman that you don't oblige to marry you!" Rufus burst out. "Ha, ha, ha! — ho, ho, ho! —"

Winthrop's mouth gave the slightest good-humoured token of understanding him, — it could not be called a smile. Rufus had his laugh out, and cooled down into deeper gravity than before.

"Well!" — said he, — "I'll go off to my fate, at the limitless wild of the West. It seems a rough sort of fate."

"Make your fate for yourself," said Winthrop.

"You will," said his brother. "And it will be what you will, and that's a fair one. And you will oblige anybody you have a mind to. And marry an heiress."

"Don't look much like it — things at present," said Winthrop. "I don't see the way very clear."

"As for me, I don't know what ever I shall come to," Rufus added.

"Come to bed at present," said Winthrop. "That is one step."

"One step towards what?"

"Sleep in the first place; and after that, anything."

"What a strange creature you are, Governor! and how doubtlessly and dauntlessly you pursue your way," Rufus said sighing.

"Sighs never filled anybody's sails yet," said Winthrop. "They are the very airs of a calm."

"Calm!" said Rufus.

"A dead calm," said his brother laughing.

"I wish I had your calm," said Rufus. And with that the evening ended.

CHAPTER XXI.

O what men dare do! what men may do! what men daily do! not knowing what they do! MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.

One morning, about these days, Mr. and Miss Haye were seated at the opposite ends of the breakfast-table. They had been there for some time, silently buttering rolls and sipping coffee, in a leisurely way on Mr. Haye's part, and an ungratified one on the part of his daughter. He was considering, also in a leisurely sort of way, the columns of the morning paper; she considering him and the paper, and at intervals knocking with her knife against the edge of her plate, — a meditative and discontented knife, and an impassive and unimpressed plate. So breakfast went on till Elizabeth's cup was nearly emptied.

"Father," said she, "it is very unsociable and stupid for you to read the paper, and me to eat my breakfast alone. You might read aloud, if you must read."

Mr. Haye brought his head round from the paper long enough to swallow half a cupful of coffee.

"Where's Rose?"

"In bed, for aught I know. There is no moving her till she has a mind."

"'Seems to me, it is quite as difficult to move you," said her father.

"Ay, but then I have a mind — which makes all the difference."

Mr. Haye went back to his paper and considered it till the rest of his cup of coffee was thoroughly cold. Elizabeth finished her breakfast, and sat, drawn back into herself, with arms folded, looking into the fireplace. Finding his coffee cold, Mr. Haye's attention came at length back upon his daughter.

"What do you want me to talk about?" he said.

"It don't signify, your talking about anything now," said Elizabeth. "Everything is cold — mind and matter together. I don't know how you'll find the coffee, father."

Mr. Haye stirred it, with a discontented look.

"Rose is late," he remarked again.

"That's nothing new," said Elizabeth. "Late is her time."

Mr. Haye drunk his cold cupful.

"You're very fond of her, Lizzie, aren't you?"

"No," said Elizabeth. "I don't think I am."

"Not fond of her!" said Mr. Haye in a very surprised tone.

"No," said Elizabeth, — "I don't think I am."

"I thought you were," said her father, in a voice that spoke both chagrin and displeasure.

"What made you think so?"

"You always seemed fond of her," said Mr. Haye.

"I can't have seemed so, for I never was so. There isn't enough of her to be fond of. I talk to her, and like her after a fashion, because she is the only person near me that I can talk to — that's all."

"I am fond of her," said Mr. Haye.

"It takes more to make me fond of anybody," said his daughter. "I know you are."

"What does Rose want, to have the honour of your good opinion?"

"O don't talk in that tone!" said Elizabeth. "I had rather you would not talk at all. You have chosen an unhappy subject. It takes a good deal to make me like anybody much, father."

"What does Rose want?"

"As near as possible, everything," said Elizabeth, — "if you will have the answer."

"What?"

"Why father, she has nothing in the world but a very pretty face."

"You grant her that," said Mr. Haye.

"Yes, I grant her that, though it is a great while since I saw it pretty. Father, I care nothing at all for any face which has nothing beneath the outside. It's a barren prospect to me, however fair the outside may be — I don't care to let my eye dwell on it."

"How do you like the prospect of your own, in the glass?"

"I should be very sorry if I didn't think it had infinitely more in it than the face we have been speaking of. It is not so beautifully tinted, nor so regularly cut; but I like it better."

"I am afraid few people will agree with you," said her father dryly.

"There's one thing," said Elizabeth, — "I sha'n't know it if they don't. But then I see my face at a disadvantage, looking stupidly at itself in the glass — I hope it does better to other people."

"I didn't know you thought quite so much of yourself," said Mr. Haye.

"I haven't told you the half," said Elizabeth, looking at him. "I am afraid I think more of myself than anybody else does, or ever will."

"If you do it so well for yourself, I'm afraid other people won't save you the trouble," said her father.

"I'm afraid you will not, by the tone in which you speak, father."

"What has set you against Rose?"

"Nothing in the world! I am not set against her. Nothing in the world but her own emptiness and impossibility of being anything like a companion to me."

"Elizabeth! —"

"Father! — What's the matter?"

"How dare you talk in that manner?"

"Why father," said Elizabeth, her tone somewhat quieting as his was roused, — "I never saw the thing yet I didn't dare say, if I thought it. Why shouldn't I?"

"Because it is not true — a word of it."

"I'm sure I wish it wasn't true," said Elizabeth. "What I said was true. It's a sorrowful truth to me, too, for I haven't a soul to talk to that can understand me — not even you, father, it seems."

"I wish I didn't understand you," said Mr. Haye.

"It's nothing very dreadful to understand," said Elizabeth, — "what I have been saying now. I wonder how you can think so much of it. I know you love Rose better than I do."

"I love her so well —" said Mr. Haye, and stopped.

"So well that what?"

"That I can hardly talk to you with temper."

"Then don't let us talk about it at all," said Elizabeth, whose own heightened colour shewed that her temper was moving.

"Unhappily it is necessary," said Mr. Haye dryly.

"Why in the world is it necessary? You can't alter the matter, father, by talking; — it must stand so."

"Stand how?"

"Why, as it does stand — Rose and I as near as possible nothing to each other."

"Things can hardly stand so," said Mr. Haye. "You must be either less or more."

Elizabeth sat silent and looked at him. He looked at nothing but what was on his plate.

"How would you like to have Rose take your place?"

"My place?" said Elizabeth.

"Yes," said Mr. Haye laconically.

"No place that I fill, could be filled by Rose," said Elizabeth, with the slightest perceptible lifting of her head and raising of her brow.

"We will try that," said Mr. Haye bitterly; "for I will put her over your head, and we will see."

"Put her where?" said Elizabeth.

"Over this house — over my establishment — at this table — in your place as the head of this family."

"You will take her for your daughter, and discard me?" said Elizabeth.

"No — I will not, —" said Mr. Haye, cutting a piece of beefsteak in a way that shewed him indifferent to its fate. "I will not! — I will make her my wife! —"

Elizabeth had risen from the table and now she stood on the rug before the fire, with her arms behind her, looking down at the breakfast-table and her father. Literally, looking down upon them. Her cheeks were very pale, but fires that were not heaven-lit were burning somewhere within her, shining out at her eye and now and then colouring her face with a sudden flare. There was a pause. Mr. Haye tried what he could do with his beefsteak; and his daughter's countenance shewed the cloud and the flame of the volcano by turns. For awhile the father and daughter held off from each other. But Mr. Haye's breakfast gave symptoms of coming to an end.

"Father," said Elizabeth, bringing her hands in front of her and clasping them, — "say you did not mean that!"

"Ha! —" said Mr. Haye without looking at her, and brushing the crumbs from his pantaloons.

Elizabeth waited.

"What did you mean?"

"I spoke plain enough," said he.

"Do you mean to say that you meant that?" said Elizabeth, the volcanic fires leaping up bright.

"Meant it?" said Mr. Haye, looking at her. "Yes, I meant it."

"Father, you did not! —"

Mr. Haye looked again at her hands and her face, and answered coolly.

"Ask Rose whether I meant it, —"

And left the room.

Elizabeth neither saw nor heard, for some minutes; they might have been many or few. Then she became aware that the servant was asking her if he should leave the breakfast-table still for Miss Cadwallader; and her answer, "No — take it away!" — was given with startling decision. The man had known his young mistress before to speak with lips that were supreme in their expression. He only obeyed, without even wondering. Elizabeth in a whirl of feeling that like the smoke of the volcano hid everything but itself, went and stood in the window; present to nothing but herself; seeing neither the street without nor the house within. Wrapped in that smoke, she did not know when the servant went out, nor whether anybody else came in. She stood there pale, with lips set, her hands folded against her waist, and pressing there with a force the muscles never relaxed. How long she did not know. Something aroused her, and she discerned, through the smoke, another figure in the room and coming towards her. Elizabeth stepped out from the window, without altering anything but her place, and stood opposite to Winthrop Landholm. If it had been Queen Elizabeth of old and one of her courtiers, it would have been all one; the young man's respectful greeting could not have been met with more superb regality of head and brow.

"I have a letter for Mr. Haye," said Winthrop, "which my brother left in my charge. That brought me here this morning, and I ventured to make business an excuse for pleasure."

"It may lie on the table till he comes," said Elizabeth with the slightest bend of her stately little head. She might have meant the letter or the pleasure or the business, or all three.

"You are well, Miss Haye?" said Winthrop doubtfully.

"No — I am well enough," said Elizabeth. A revulsion of feeling had very nearly brought down her head in a flood of tears; but she kept that back carefully and perfectly; and the next instant she started with another change, for Rose came in. She gave Winthrop a very smiling and bright salutation; which he acknowledged silently, gravely, and even distantly.

"Aren't you well, Mr. Landholm?" was Rose's next instant question, most sweetly given.

"Very well," he said with another bow.

"What have you been talking about, to get so melancholy? Lizzie —"

But Rose caught sight of the gathered blackness of that face, and stopped short. Elizabeth bestowed one glance upon her; and as she then turned to the other person of the party the revulsion came over her again, so strong that it was overcoming. For a minute her hands went to her face, and it was with extreme difficulty that the rising heart was kept down. Will had the mastery, however, and her face looked up again more dark than ever.

"We have talked of nothing at all," she said. "Mr. Landholm only came to bring a letter."

Mr. Landholm could not stay after that, for anything. He bowed himself out; and left Elizabeth standing in the middle of the floor, looking as if the crust of the earth had given way under her and 'chaos was come again.' She stood there as she had stood in the window, still and cold; and Rose afar off by the chimney corner stood watching her, as one would a wild beast or a venomous creature in the room, not a little fear mingled with a shadow of something else in her face.

Elizabeth's first movement was to walk a few steps up and down, swinging one clenched hand, but half the breadth of the room was all she went. She sunk down there beside a chair and hid her face, exclaiming or rather groaning out, one after the other, — "Oh! — oh!" — in such tones as are dragged from very far down in the heart; careless of Rose's hearing her.

"What is the matter, Lizzie?" — her companion ventured timidly. But Elizabeth gave no answer; and neither of them stirred for many minutes, an occasional uneasy flutter of Rose's being the exception. The question at last was asked over again, and responded to.

"That my father has disgraced himself, and that you are the cause!"

"There's no disgrace," said Rose.

"Don't say he has not!" said Elizabeth, looking up with an eye that glared upon her adversary. "And before he had done it, I wish you had never been born, — or I."

"It's no harm, —" said Rose confusedly.

"Harm! — harm, —" repeated Elizabeth; then putting her face down again; "Oh! — what's the use of living, in such a world!"

"I don't see what harm it does to you," said Rose, muttering her words.

"Harm?" repeated Elizabeth. "If it was right to wish it, — which I believe it isn't, — I could wish that I was dead. It almost seems to me I wish I were!"

"You're not sure about it," said Rose.

"No, I am not," said Elizabeth looking up at her again with eyes of fire and a face from which pain and passion had driven all but livid colour, — but looking at her steadily, — "because there is something after death; and I am not sure that I am ready for it. I dare not say I wish I was dead, Rose Cadwallader, or you would drive me to it!"

"I'm sure, I've done nothing," — said Rose whimpering.

"Done nothing!" said Elizabeth with a concentrated power of expression. "Oh I wish you had done anything, before my father had lowered himself in my eyes and you had been the cause! —"

"I'm not the cause of anything," said Rose.

Elizabeth did not answer; she was crouching by the side of the chair in an uneasy position that said how far from ease the spirit was.

"And he hasn't lowered himself," Rose went on pouting.

"It is done!" — said Elizabeth, getting up from the floor and standing, not unlike a lightning-struck tree. — "I wonder what will become of me! —"

"What are you going to do?"

"I would find a way out of this house, if I knew how."

"That's easy enough," said Rose with a slight sneer. "There are plenty of ways."

"Easy enough, —if one could find the right one."

"Why you've had me in the house a great while, already," said Rose.

"I have had —" said Elizabeth. — "I wonder if I shall ever have anything again!"

"Why what have you lost?"

"Everything — except myself."

"You have a great respect for Mr. Haye," said Rose.

"I had."

Rose at this point thought fit to burst into a great fit of tears. Elizabeth stood by the table, taking up and putting down one book after another, as if the touch of them gave her fingers pain; and looking as if, as she said, she had lost everything. Then stood with folded arms eyeing something that was not before her; and then slowly walked out of the room.

"Lizzie —" said Rose.

"What?" said Elizabeth stopping at the door.

"What's the use of taking things so?"

"The use of necessity."

"But we can be just as we were before."

Elizabeth went on and gained her own room; and there she and pain had a fight that lasted the rest of the day.

The fight was not over, and weary traces of it were upon her face, when late in the afternoon she went out to try the change of a walk. The walk made no change whatever. As she was coming up the Parade, she was met by Winthrop going down. If he had seen only the gravity and reserve of the morning, it is probable he would not have stopped to speak to her; but though those were in her face still, there was beside a weary set of the brow and sorrowful line of the lips, very unwonted there, and the cheeks were pale; and instead of passing with a mere bow he came up and offered his hand. Elizabeth took it, but without the least brightening of face.

"Are you out for a walk?" said he.

"No — I am for home — I have had a walk."

"It is a very fine afternoon," said he, turning and beginning to walk along slowly with her.

"Is it?"

"Haven't you found out that it is?"

"No."

"Where have you been, not to know it?"

"Hum —" said Elizabeth, — "if you mean where my mind has been, that is one question; as for my bodily self, I have been on the Castle Green."

"You have lost your walk," said he. "Don't you feel inclined to turn about with me and try to pick up what you came out for?"

"Better there than at home," thought Elizabeth, and she turned about accordingly.

"People come out for a variety of things," she remarked however.

"That is true," said Winthrop smiling. "I am afraid I was hasty in presuming I could help you to find your object. I was thinking only of mine."

"I don't know but you could, as well as anybody," said Elizabeth. "If you could give me your mother's secret for not minding disagreeable things."

"I am afraid I cannot say she does not mind them," he answered.

"What then? — I thought you said so."

"I do not remember what I said. I might have said that she does not struggle with them — those at least which cannot be removed by struggling."

"Not struggle with them?" said Elizabeth. "Sit down quietly with them!"

"Yes," he said gravely. "Not at first, but at last."

"I don't believe in it," said Elizabeth. "That is, I don't believe in it as a general thing. It may be possible for her. I am sure it never could be for me."

Winthrop was silent, and they walked so for the space of half a block.

"Would she say that it is possible for everybody?" inquired Elizabeth then.

"I believe she would say that it is not temperament, nor circumstance, nor stoical philosophy."

"What then?"

"A drop of some pacifying oil out of a heaven-wrought chalice."

"I don't think figures are the easiest mode of getting at things, Mr. Landholm. You don't make this clear."

He smiled a little, as he pushed open the little wicket gate of the Green, and without saying anything more they sauntered in, along the broad gravel walk sweeping round the enclosure; slowly, till they had passed the fortifications and stood looking upon the bay over towards Blue Point. The sun was almost on the low ruddied horizon; a stirring north breeze came down from the up country, roughening the bay, and the sunbeams leapt across from the opposite western shore giving a touch of light to every wave. The air was very fine; the sky without a cloud, except some waiting flecks of vapour around the sun. The two friends stood still some little time, to look or to think; looking especially at the fair glowing western heaven, and the tossing water between, every roll of which was with a dance and a sparkle.

"Does this make anything clear?" asked Winthrop, when some time had gone by without speech or movement from either of them.

He spoke lightly enough; but the answer was given in a tone that bespoke its truth.

"Oh no! —"

And Elizabeth's face was turned away so that he could see nothing but her bonnet, beside the tremulous swell of the throat; that he did see.

"It has very often such an effect for me," — he went on in the same tone. "And I often come here for the very purpose of trying it; when my head gets thick over law-papers."

"That may do for some things," said Elizabeth. "It won't for others."

"This would work well along with my mother's recipe," he said.

"What is that?" said Elizabeth harshly. "You didn't tell me."

"I am hardly fit to tell you," he answered, "for I do not thoroughly know it myself. But I know she would send you to the Bible, —and tell you of a hand that she trusts to do everything for her, and that she knows will do all things well, and kindly."

"But does that hinder disagreeables from being disagreeables?" said Elizabeth with some impatience of tone. "Does that hinder aches from being pain?"

"Hardly. But I believe it stops or soothes the aching. I believe it, because I have seen it."

Elizabeth stood still, her bosom swelling, and that fluttering of her throat growing more fluttering. It got beyond her command. The mixed passions and vexations, and with them a certain softer and more undefined regret, reached a point where she had no control over them. The tears would come, and once arrived at that, they took their own way; with such a rush of passionate indulgence, that a thought of the time and the place and the witness, made nothing, or came in only to swell the rush. The flood poured over the barrier with such joy at being set free, that it carried all before it. Elizabeth was just conscious of being placed on a seat, near to which it happened that she was standing; and she knew nothing more. She did not even know how completely she was left to herself. Not till the fever of passion was brought a little down, and recollection and shame began to take their turn, and she checked her tears and stole a secret glance around to see what part of the gravel walk supported a certain pair of feet, for higher than the ground she dared not look. Her surprise was a good deal to find that her glance must take quite a wide range to meet with them; and then venturing a single upward look, she saw that her companion standing at a little distance was not watching her, nor apparently had been; his attitude bespoke him quietly fixed upon something else and awaiting her leisure. Elizabeth brought her eyes home again.

"What a strange young man!" was her quick thought; — "to have been brought up a farmer's boy, and to know enough and to dare enough to put me on this seat, and then to have the wit to go off and stand there in that manner!"

But this tribute of respect to Winthrop was instantly followed by an endeavour to do herself honour, in the way of gaining self-possession and her ordinary looks as speedily as possible. She commanded herself well after once she got the reins in hand; yet however it was with a grave consciousness of swollen eyes and flushed cheeks that she presently rose from her place and went forward to the side of the quiet figure that stood there with folded arms watching the rolling waters of the bay. Elizabeth stood at his elbow a minute in hesitation.

"I am ready now, Mr. Landholm. I am sorry I have kept you by my ridiculousness."

"I have not been kept beyond my pleasure," he said.

"I lost command of myself," Elizabeth went on. "That happens to me once in a while."

"You will feel better for it," he said, as they turned and began to walk homewards.

"He takes things coolly!" thought Elizabeth.

"Do you men ever lose command of yourselves?"

"Sometimes — I am afraid," he said with a smile.

"I suppose your greater power of nerve and of guarding appearances, is one secret of the triumphant sort of pride you wear upon occasion. There —I see it in your face now."

"I hope not," said Winthrop laughing. "The best instance of self-control that I ever saw, was most unaccompanied with any arrogance of merit or power."

"He means his mother again," thought Elizabeth.

"Was that instance in a man or a woman, Mr. Landholm?"

"It was in a woman — unfortunately for your ground."

"Not at all," said Elizabeth. "Exceptions prove nothing."

Winthrop said nothing, for his thoughts were busy with that image of sweet self-guidance which he had never known to be unsteady or fail; and which, he knew, referred all its strength and all its stableness to the keeping of another hand. Most feminine, most humble, and most sure.

"Mr. Winthrop, your mother puzzles me," said Elizabeth. "I wish I knew some of her secrets."

"I wish I did," he answered with half a sigh.

"Why, don't you!"

"No."

"I thought you did."

"No; for she says they can only be arrived at through a certain initiation which I have not had — after certain preliminary steps, which I have not yet taken."

Elizabeth looked at him, both surprised and curious.

"What are they?"

Winthrop's face was graver than usual, as he said,

"I wish my mother were here to answer you."

"Why, cannot you?"

"No."

"Don't you know the preliminary steps, Mr. Landholm?"

He looked very grave again.

"Not clearly enough to tell you. In general, I know she would say there is a narrow way to be passed through before the treasures of truth, or its fair prospects, can be arrived at; but I have never gone that way myself and I cannot point out the way-marks."

"Are you referring to the narrow gate spoken of in the Bible?"

"To the same."

"Then you are getting upon what I do not understand," said Elizabeth.

They had mounted the steps of No. 11, and were waiting for the door to be opened. They waited silently till it was done, and then parted with only a 'good night.' Elizabeth did not ask him in, and it hardly occurred to Winthrop to wonder that she did not.

Mr. Landholm read no classics that night. Neither law. Neither, which may seem more strange, did he consult his Book of books at all. He busied himself, not exactly with the study of the human mind, but of two human minds, — which, though at first sight it may seem an enlargement of the subject, is in fact rather a contracted view of the same.

CHAPTER XXII.

Sir Toby. Do not our lives consist of the four elements? Sir And. 'Faith, so they say, but, I think, it rather consists of eating and drinking. TWELFTH NIGHT.

"Dear, Mr. Winthrop, — what makes all this smoke here?" exclaimed Mrs. Nettley one morning, as she opened the door of his attic.

"I suppose, the wind, Mrs. Nettley," said Winthrop looking up from the book he was studying.

"O dear! — how do you manage?"

"I can't manage the smoke, Mrs. Nettley — Its resources exceed mine."

"It's that chimney!" exclaimed the good lady, standing and eyeing it in a sort of desperate concern, as if she would willingly have gone up the flue herself, so that only she could thereby have secured the smoke's doing the same. "I always knew that chimney was bad — I had it once a while myself — I'm sorry you've got it now. What do you do, Mr. Winthrop?"

"The smoke and I take turns in going out, Mrs. Nettley."

"Eh? — Does it often come in so? Can't you help it?"

"It generally takes advice with the wind, not with me, ma'am."

"But the chimney might have better advice. I'll get George to fetch a doctor — I had forgotten it was so bad, I had quite forgotten it, and you never say a word — Mr. Landholm, you never come to see us."

"I have so much else to see," he said, glancing at his book.

"Yes, and that reminds me — Have you heard the news?"

"I have heard none to-day."

"Then you heard it yesterday, — of course you did; but I hear so little, when anything comes to me that's new I always think it must be new to everybody else. But of course you must know it, as it is about friends of yours; I dare say you knew it long ago; — though such things are kept close sometimes, even from friends; and I somehow was surprised to hear this, though I had no right to be, for I suppose I had no reason for my fancy. I think a good many things I have no reason for, George thinks. Maybe I do. I cant help it."

"But what is the thing in this case, Mrs. Nettley?" said Winthrop smiling.

"Why George told me — don't you know? I was a little disappointed, Mr. Winthrop."

"Why?"

"Why, I had a fancy things were going another way."

"I don't know what you are talking about."

"That's because I talk so ill — It's this piece of news George brought home yesterday — he was dining out, for a wonder, with this gentleman who is going to sit to him; I forget his name, — Mr. — I don't know what it is! — but I am foolish to talk about it. Won't you come down and take a cup of tea with us to-night, Mr. Landholm? that's what I came up to ask, and not to stand interrupting you. But you've quite forgotten us lately."

"Thank you, Mrs. Nettley, I'll come with great pleasure — on condition that you tell me your news."

"The news? O it's no news to you — it's only this about Miss Haye."

"What about Miss Haye?"

"They say that she is going to get married, to a Mr. Cadwallader, George said. Her cousin I suppose; there is a cousinship of that name, isn't there, Mr. Landholm?"

Mr. Landholm bowed.

"And had you heard of it before?"

"No, I had not."

"And is it a good match? She is a fine girl, isn't she?"

"I know really nothing of the matter, Mrs. Nettley — I have never seen the gentleman."

"Really! Haven't you? — then it was news," said the lady. "I thought you were accustomed to see them so often — I didn't think I was telling you anything. George and I — you must forgive us, Mr. Winthrop, people will have such thoughts; they will come in, and you cannot help it — I don't know what's to keep 'em out, unless one could put bars and gates upon one's minds, and you can't well do that; — but George and I used to have suspicions of you, Mr. Landholm. Well, I have interrupted you long enough. Dear! what windows! I'm ashamed. I'll send the girl up, the first chance you are out of the house. I told her to come up too; but she is heedless. I haven't been to see 'em myself in I don't know how many days; but you're always so terribly busy — and now I've staid twice too long!" —

And away she hurried, softly closing the door after her.

Mr. Landholm's quiet study was remarkably quiet for a good while after she went out. No leaf of his book rustled over; not a foot of his chair grated on the floor, — for though the floor did boast a bit of carpet, it lay not where he sat, by the window; and the coals and firebrands fell noiselessly down into the ashes and nobody was reminded that the fire would burn itself out in time if it was let alone. The morning light grew stronger, and the sunbeams that never got there till between nine and ten o'clock, walked into the room; and they found Winthrop Landholm with his elbow on the table and his head in his hand, where they often were; but with his eyes where they not often were — on the floor. The sunbeams said very softly that it was time to be at the office, but they said it very softly, and Winthrop did not hear them.

He heard however presently a footstep on the stair, in the next story at first, and then mounting the uppermost flight that led to the attic. A heavy brisk energetic footstep, — not Mrs. Nettley's soft and slow tread, nor the more deliberate one of her brother. Winthrop listened a moment, and then as the last impatient creak of the boot stopped at his threshold he knew who would open the door. It was Rufus.

"Here you are. Why I expected to find you at the office!" was the first cheery exclamation, after the brothers had clasped hands.

"What did you come here to find, then?" said Winthrop.

"Room for my carpet-bag, in the first place; and a pair of slippers, and comfort. It's stinging weather, Governor!"

"I know it. I came down the river the night before last."

"I shouldn't think you knew it, for you've let your fire go down confoundedly. Why Winthrop! there's hardly a spark here! What have you been thinking about?"

"I was kindling the fire, mentally," said Winthrop.

"Mentally! — where's your kindling? — I can tell you! — if you had been out in this air you'd want some breath of material flame, before you could set any other agoing. And I am afraid this isn't enough — or won't be, — I want some fuel for another sort of internal combustion — some of my Scotchman's haggis."

And Rufus stopped to laugh, with a very funny face, in the midst of his piling chips and brands together.

"Haggis?" said Winthrop.

"Yes. — There was a good fellow of a Scotchman in the stage with me last night — he had the seat just behind me — and he and a brother Scotchman were discoursing valiantly of old world things; warming themselves up with the recollection. — Winthrop, have you got a bit of paper here? — And I heard the word 'haggis' over and over again, —'haggis' and 'parritch.' At last I turned round gravely — 'Pray sir,' said I, 'what is a haggis?' 'Weel, sir,' said he good-humouredly, — 'I don't just know the ingredients — it's made of meal, — and onions, I believe, —and other combustibles!!' — Winthrop, have you got any breakfast in the house?"

"Not much in the combustible line, I am afraid," said Winthrop, putting up his books and going to the closet.

"Well if you can enact Mother Hubbard and 'give a poor dog a bone,' I shall be thankful, — for anything."

"I am afraid hunger has perverted your memory," said Winthrop.

"How?"

"If the cupboard should play its part now, the dog would go without any."

"O you'll do better for me than that, I hope," said Rufus; "for I couldn't go on enacting the dog's part long; he took to laughing, if I remember, and I should be beyond that directly."

"Does that ever happen?" said Winthrop, as he brought out of the cupboard his bits of stores; a plate with the end of a loaf of bread, a little pitcher of milk, and another plate with some remains of cold beefsteak. For all reply, Rufus seized upon a piece of bread, to begin with, and thrusting a fork into the beefsteak, he held it in front of the just- burning firebrands. Winthrop stood looking on, while Rufus, the beefsteak, and the smoke, seemed mutually intent upon each other. It was a question of time, and patience; not to speak of fortitude.

"Winthrop," said Rufus changing hands with his fork, — "have you any coffee?"

"No sir."

"Tea?"

"No."

"Out of both?"

"For some time."

"Do you live without it?"

"I live without it."

"Without either of them?"

"Without either of them."

"Then how in the world do you live?" said Rufus turning his beefsteak in a very gingerly manner and not daring to take his eyes from it.

"Without combustibles — as I told you."

"I should think so!" exclaimed his brother. "You are the coolest, toughest, most stubborn and unimpressible piece of sensibility, that ever lived in a garret and deserved to live — somewhere else."

"Doubtful strain of commendation," said Winthrop. "What has brought you to Mannahatta?"

"But Winthrop, this is a new fancy of yours?"

"No, not very."

"How long since?"

"Since what?"

"Since you gave up all the good things of this life?"

"A man can only give up what he has," said Winthrop. "Those I delivered into your hands some ten minutes ago."

"But tea and coffee — You used to drink them?"

"Yes."

"Why don't you?"

"For a variety of reasons, satisfactory to my own mind."

"And have you abjured butter too?"

"I am sorry, Will," said Winthrop smiling a little, — "I will try to have some butter for you to-morrow."

"Don't you eat it in ordinary?"

"Always, when I can get it. What has brought you to Mannahatta?"

"What do you think?"

"Some rash scheme or resolution."

"Why?"

"From my judgment of your character, which might be stated as the converse of that just now so happily applied to me."

"And do natures the opposite of that never act otherwise than rashly?"

"I hope so; for as the coolest are sometimes excited, so the hot may be sometimes cool."

"And don't I look cool?"

"You did when you came in," said Winthrop.

"I should think living on bread and milk might help that, in ordinary," said Rufus. "Just in my present condition it has rather a different effect. Well Governor, I've come to Mannahatta —"

"I see that," said Winthrop.

"I'll thank you not to interrupt me. I've come to Mannahatta — on a piece of business."

Winthrop waited, and Rufus after another cut of the bread and meat, went on.

"Governor, I'm going to quit engineering and take to another mode of making money."

"Have you done with your last piece of work at the West?"

"No — I'm going back there to finish it. O, I'm going back there — I've only come here now to sign some papers and make some arrangements; I shall come finally, I suppose, about May, or April. I've been corresponding with Haye lately."

"About what?"

"About this! What should I correspond with him about? By the way, what an infernal piece of folly this marriage is!"

"Not mixed up with your business, is it?"

"No, of course; how should it? but I am tremendously surprised. Aren't you?"

"People of my temperament never are, you know."

"People of your temperament — have a corner for their thoughts," said Rufus. "Well, there's one chance gone for you, Governor."

"Which it does not appear that I ever had."

"No indeed, that's very true. Well, about my business. — Haye has advocated my leaving the country and coming here. And he knows what he is about, Winthrop; he is a capital man of business. He says he can put me in a way of doing well for myself in a very short time here, and he recommended my coming."

"What's his object?" said Winthrop.

"What's his object?"

"Yes."

"How should I know! He wants to serve me, I suppose; and I believe he has kindliness enough for me, to be not unwilling to get me in the same place of business with himself."

"What will he do for you?"

"This, to begin with. He has a quantity of cotton lying in his stores, which he offers to make over to me, upon a certain valuation. And I shall ship it to Liverpool, as he recommends."

"Have you got your money from the North Lyttleton company?"

"No, nor from anybody else; — not yet; but it's coming."

"Is this purchase of cotton to be executed immediately?"

"Immediately. That's what I have come down for."

"How are you to pay Mr. Haye?"

"By bills upon the consignees."

"Does the purchase swallow up all your means?"

"None of them," said Rufus impatiently. "I tell you, it is to be consummated by drawing bills in Haye's favour upon the consignees — Fleet, Norton & Co."

"Suppose the consignment don't pay?"

"It will pay, of course! Don't you suppose Haye knows what he is about?"

"Yes; but that don't satisfy me, unless I know it too."

"I do," said Rufus. "He takes an interest in me for my father's sake; and I think I may say without vanity, for my own; and he is willing to do me a kindness, which he can do without hurting himself. That is all; and very simple."

"Too simple," said Winthrop.

"What do you mean?"

"What are you going to do when you come here?"

"Look after my in-comings; and I shall probably go into Haye's office and rub up my arithmetic in the earlier branches. What are you going to do?"

"I am going to the office, — Mr. De Wort's."

"What to do there, Governor?"

"Read, write, and record, law and lawpapers."

"Always at the same thing!"

"Always."

"Seems a slow way of getting ahead."

"It's sure," said Winthrop.

"You are sure, I believe, of whatever you undertake. By the way — have you undertaken the other adventure yet?"

"I don't know what you mean."

"The adventure we were talking about. — The heiress."

"I can adventure nothing upon speculation," said Winthrop.

"Then you have not had a chance to carry out your favourite idea of obligation. Do you know, I never should have suspected you of having such an idea."

"Shews how much we go upon speculation even with our nearest friends," said Winthrop.

"And how speculation fails there as elsewhere. What a fool Haye has made of himself!"

"In what?"

"Why, in this match."

"What has he done?"

"Done! why he has done it. Enough, I should think. I wish his folly stood alone."

"How do you know he has done it?"

"He told me so himself. I met him as I came along just now; and he told me he was to be married to-morrow and would attend to my business next day."

"Told you who would?"

"He. Himself. Haye."

"Told you he was to be married?"

"Yes. Who else?"

"To whom?"

"Why! — to his niece — ward — what is she? Rose Cadwallader."

"Mr. Haye and Miss Cadwallader!" said Winthrop.

"To be sure. What are you thinking of? What have we been talking about?"

"You know best," said Winthrop. "My informant had brought another person upon the stage."

"Who?"

"A Mr. Cadwallader."

"There's no such thing as a Mr. Cadwallader. It's Haye himself; and it only shews how all a man's wisdom may be located in one quarter of his brain and leave the other empty."

"To-morrow?" said Winthrop.

"Yes; and you and I are invited to pay our respects at eleven. Haven't you had an invitation?"

"I don't know — I have been out of town — and for the present I must pay my respects in another direction. I must leave you, Will."

"Look here. What's the matter with you, Winthrop?"

"Nothing at all," said Winthrop facing round upon his brother.

"Well I believe there isn't," said Rufus, taking a prolonged look at him, — "but somehow I was thinking — You're a fine- looking fellow, Winthrop!"

"You'll find wood in the further end of the closet," said Winthrop smiling. "I am afraid Mother Hubbard's shelves are in classical order —that is, with nothing on them."

"I sha'n't want anything more till dinner," said Rufus. "Where do you dine?"

"At the chop-house to-day."

"I'll meet you there. Won't you be home till night?"

"I never am."

"Well —till dinner," said Rufus waving his hand. And his brother left him.

Turning away from the table and his emptied dishes and fragmentary beef-bone, Rufus sat before the little fireplace, gazing into it at the red coals, and taking casual and then wistful note of various things about his brother's apartment that told of the man that lived there.

"Spare!" — said Rufus to himself, as his eye marked the scanty carpet, the unpainted few wooden chairs, the curtainless bed, the rough deal shelves of the closet which shewed at the open door, and the very economical chimney place, which now, the wind having gone down, did no longer smoke; — "Spare! — but he'll have a better place to live in, one of these days, and will furnish it." — And visions of mahogany and of mirrors glanced across Rufus's imagination, how unlike the images around him and before his bodily eye. — "Spare! — poor fellow! — he's working hard just now; but pay-time will come. And orderly, —just like him; his books piled in order on the window-sill — his papers held down by one on the table, the clean floor, — yes," — and rising Rufus even went and looked into the closet. There was the little stack of wood and parcel of kindling, likewise in order; there stood Winthrop's broom in a corner; and there hung Winthrop's few clothes that were not folded away in his trunk. Mother Hubbard's department was in the same spare and thoroughly kept style; and Rufus came back thoughtfully to his seat before the fire.

"Like him, every bit of it, from the books to the broom. Like him; — his own mind is just as free from dust or confusion; rather more richly furnished. What a mind it is! and what wealth he'll make out of it, for pocket and for name both. And I —"

Here Rufus's lucubrations left his brother and went off upon a sea of calculations, landing at Fleet, Norton & Co. and then coming back to Mannahatta and Mr. Haye's counting-room. He had plenty of time for them, as no business obviously could be done till the day after to-morrow.

CHAPTER XXIII.

Touch. All your writers do consent that ipso is he; now you are not ipse, for I am he. Well. Which he, sir? AS YOU LIKE IT.

In due course of time the morrow brought round eleven o'clock; and the two brothers took their way, whither all the world severally were taking theirs, to Mr. Haye's house. The wedding was over and the guests were pouring in.

For some reason or other the walk was taken in grave silence, by both parties, till they were mounting the steps to the hall door.

"How do you suppose Elizabeth will like this?" Rufus whispered.

Winthrop did not say, nor indeed answer at all; and his brother's attention was caught the next minute by Mr. Herder whom they encountered in the hall.

"How do you do?" said the naturalist grasping both his young friends' hands, — "when did you come? and how is all wiz you? I hope you are not going to be married!"

"Why, Mr. Herder?" said Rufus laughing.

"It is very perplexing, and does not satisfy nobody," said the naturalist. "So quick as a man thinks of somebody else a leetle too hard, he forgets himself altogezer; and then, he does not be sure what he is doing. Now — dis man —"

"Isn't he sure what he has done?" said Rufus much amused.

"No, he does not know," said Mr. Herder.

"What does his daughter think of it?"

"She looks black at it. I do not know what she is thinking. I do not want to know."

"Ha! What does she say?"

"She says nozing at all; she looks black," said the naturalist shrugging his shoulders. "Don't you go to get married. You will not satisfy nobody."

"Except myself," said Rufus.

"Maybe. I do not know," said the naturalist. "A man has not no right to satisfy himself wizout he can satisfy ozer people too. I am sorry for poor Miss Elisabet'."

"I wonder how many matches would be made upon that rule!" said Rufus, as they parted and Mr. Herder joined the company within.

"They would be all matches made by other people," said Winthrop.

"And on the principle that 'to-morrow never comes' — the world would come to an end."

So they entered the drawing-rooms.

There were many people there, and certainly for the present there were few unsatisfied faces; for the bride was lovely enough and the bridegroom of consequence enough, to make compliments to them a matter of pleasure to the giver. The room was blooming with beauty and brightness. But Miss Haye was not there; and as soon as they could withdraw from the principal group the two brothers made their way to an inner room, where she stood, holding as it were a court of her own; and an unpropitious monarch she would have looked to her courtiers had they been real ones. Her face was as lowering as Mr. Herder had described it; settled in pain and pride; though now and then a quick change would pass over it, very like the play of lightning on a distant cloud; — fitful, sharp, and traceless. Just as Rufus and Winthrop had made their bow, and before they had time to speak, another bow claimed Elizabeth's return, and the tongue that went therewith was beforehand with theirs. The speaker was a well dressed and easy mannered man of the world; but with a very javelin of an eye, as ready for a throw as a knight's lance of old, and as careless what it met in its passage through humanity.

"You have wandered out of your sphere, Miss Elizabeth."

"What do you mean, sir?" — was given with sufficient keenness.

"The bright constellation of beauty and happiness is in the other room. Stars set off one another."

"I shine best alone," said Elizabeth.

"You disdain the effect of commingled and reflected light?"

"Yes I do, heartily, in this case. I wish for no glory that does not belong to me."

"But does not the glory of your father and mother belong to you?" said the gentleman. He spoke with the most smooth deference of manner, that all but covered his intent; but the flush and fire started into Elizabeth's face reminding one of the volcano again. Her eye watered with pain too, and she hesitated; she was evidently not ready with an answer. Perhaps for that reason it was given with added haughtiness.

"You need not trouble yourself to reckon what does or what does not belong to me. I know my belongings, and will take care of them."

"You are satisfied with them," said the gentleman, "and willing they should stand alone?"

"I am willing they should take their chance, sir."

"I know no one who can better say that," remarked Rufus.

"With better confidence, or better grounds do you mean?"

"I hope you do not need to be told!" said Rufus, his eye sparkling half with fun and half with admiration at the face and manner with which Elizabeth turned upon him.

"Which leaves the lady at liberty to suppose what she pleases," said the first speaker.

"It leaves her at liberty to suppose nothing of the kind!" Rufus rejoined, with a little dilating of the nostril.

"Nothing can constrain my liberty in that respect," said the lady in question.

"Except your knowledge of human nature?" said Rufus.

"I have no hindrance in that," said Elizabeth.

"To supposing what you please?"

"Or what pleases you, perhaps," said the first speaker.

"Anything but that, Mr. Archibald!"

"Then it was no surprise to you that your father should set a young and lovely Mrs. Haye at the head of his establishment, even though he found her in the person of your playmate?"

Elizabeth hesitated; she drew in her under lip, and her eye darkened and lightened; but she hesitated. Then she spoke, looking down.

"I was surprised."

"Not a pleasant surprise?" said Mr. Archibald.

The girl's face literally flashed at him; from her two eyes the fire flew, as if the one would confound the other.

"How dare you ask me the question, sir!"

"Pardon me — I had no idea there was any harm in it," said the person at whom the fire flew.

"Your ideas want correcting, sir, sadly! — and your tongue."

"I will never offend again!" said Mr. Archibald bowing, and smiling a little.

"You never shall, with my good leave."

Mr. Archibald bowed again.

"Good morning! You will forgive me; and when I think time enough has elapsed, and I may with safety, I will come again."

"To visit my father, sir! —"

Not Queen Elizabeth, with ruff and farthingale, could have said it with more consciousness of her own dignity, or more superb dismission of that of another. But probably Queen Elizabeth would not have cast upon her courtiers the look, half asking for sympathy and half for approval, with which Elizabeth Haye turned to her companions. Her eye fell first upon Winthrop. But his did not meet her, and the expression of his face was very grave. Elizabeth's look went from it to Rufus. His was beaming.

"Capital!" he said. "That was admirable!"

"No," said Elizabeth after a slight hesitation, — "it was not."

"I thought it was," said Rufus, — "admirably done. Why was it not, Miss Haye? — if I am not as impertinent as another? — I thought he richly deserved his punishment."

"Yes," said Elizabeth in a dissatisfied kind of way, — "enough of that, — but I deserved better of myself than to give it to him."

"You are too hard upon yourself."

"Circumstances are sometimes."

"Will it do to say that?" said Winthrop looking up.

"Why not?"

"Will it do to confess oneself — one's freedom of mind —under the power of circumstance, and so not one's own?"

"I must confess it," said Elizabeth, "for it's true, of me. I suppose, not of every one."

"Then you cannot depend upon yourself."

"Well, — I can't."

He smiled.

"On whom then?"

"On no one! —"

And the blood sprung to her cheeks and the water to her eyes, with a sudden rush. It seemed that circumstance was not the only thing too hard for her; feeling had so far the mastery, for the minute, that her head bent down and she could not at once raise it up. Rufus walked off to the window, where he gave his attention to some greenhouse plants; Winthrop stood still.

"I would give anything in the world," said Elizabeth, lifting her head and at first humbly and then proudly wiping her tears away, — "if I could learn self-control — to command myself. Can one do it, Mr. Landholm? — one with whom it is not born?"

"I believe so."

"After all, you can't tell much about it," said Elizabeth, "for it belongs to your nature."

"No credit to him," said Rufus returning; — "it comes of the stock. An inch of self-control in one not accustomed to it, is worth more honour than all Governor's, which he can't help."

"I wouldn't give a pin for self-control in one not accustomed to it!" said Elizabeth; "it is the habitual command over oneself, that I value."

"No let-up to it?" said Rufus.

"No; — or only so much as to shew in what strength it exists. I am glad, for instance, that Washington for once forgot himself — or no, he didn't forget himself; but I am glad that passion got the better of him once. I respect the rest of his life infinitely more."

"Than that instance?"

"No, no! — for that instance."

"I am afraid you have a little tendency to hero-worship, Miss Elizabeth."

"A very safe tendency," said the young lady. "There aren't many heroes to call it out."

"Living heroes?"

"No, nor dead ones, — if one could get at more than the great facts of their lives, which don't shew us the men."

"Then you are of opinion that 'trifles make the sum of human things?'"

"I don't know what are trifles," said Elizabeth.

"Dere is nozing is no trifle," said Mr. Herder, coming in from the other room. "Dere is no such thing as trifle. Miss Elisabet' hang her head a little one side and go softly, — and people say, 'Miss Elisabet' is sad in her spirit — what is the matter?' — and you hold up your head straight and look bright out of your eyes, and they say, 'Miss Elisabet' is fiere — she feels herself goot; she do not fear nozing, she do not care for nozing.'"

"I am sure it is a trifle whether I look one way or another, Mr. Herder," said Elizabeth, laughing a little.

"Ozer people do not think so," said the naturalist.

"Besides, it is not true, that I fear nothing and care for nothing."

"But then you do not want to tell everybody what you do think," said the naturalist.

"I don't care much about it!" said Elizabeth. "I think that is a trifle, Mr. Herder."

"Which is?" — said the naturalist.

"What people think about me."

"You do not think so?"

"I do."

"I am sorry," said the naturalist.

"Why?"

"It is not goot, for people to not care what ozer people thinks about them."

"Why isn't it good? I think it is. I am sure it is comfortable."

"It shews they have a mind to do something what ozer people will not like."

"Very well! —"

"Dat is not goot."

"Maybe it is good, Mr. Herder. People are not always right in their expectations."

"It is better to go smooth wiz people," said the naturalist shaking his head a little.

"Or without them," said Elizabeth.

"Question, can you do that?" said Rufus.

"What?" said his brother.

"Live smoothly, or live at all, without regard to other people."

"It is of the world at large I was speaking," said Elizabeth. "Of course there are some few, a very few, whose word — and whose thought — one would care for and strive for, — that is not what I mean."

"And who are those few fine persons?" said Mr. Herder significantly.

"He is unhappy that doesn't know one or two," Elizabeth answered with infinite gravity.

"And the opinions of the rest of men you would despise?" said Rufus.

"Utterly! — so far as they trenched upon my freedom of action."

"You can't live so," said Rufus shaking his head.

"I will live so, if I live at all."

"Wint'rop, you do not say nozing," said the naturalist.

"What need, sir?"

"Dere is always need for everybody to say what he thinks," said Mr. Herder. "Here we have all got ourselves in a puzzle, and we don't know which way we stand."

"I am afraid every man must get out of that puzzle for himself, sir."

"Is it a puzzle at all?" said Elizabeth facing round upon him.

"Not when you have got out of it."

"Well, what's the right road out of it?"

"Break through everything in the way," said Rufus. "That seems to be the method in favour."

"What do you think is the right way?" Elizabeth repeated without looking at the last speaker.

"If you set your face in the right quarter, there is always a straight road out in that direction," Winthrop answered with a little bit of a smile.

"Doesn't that come pretty near my rule?" said Elizabeth with a smile much broader.

"I think not. If I understood, your rule was to make a straight road out for yourself in any direction."

Elizabeth laughed and coloured a little, with no displeased expression. The laugh subsided and her face became very grave again as the gentlemen made their parting bows.

The brothers walked home in silence, till they had near reached their own door.

"How easily you make a straight way for yourself anywhere!" Rufus said suddenly and with half a breath of a sigh.

"What do you mean?" said Winthrop starting.

"You always did."

"What?"

"What you pleased."

"Well?" said Winthrop smiling.

"You may do it now. And will to the end of your life."

"Which seems to afford you somehow a gloomy prospect of contemplation," said his brother.

"Well — it does — and it should."

"I should like to hear you state your premises and draw your conclusion."

Rufus was silent and very sober for a little while. At last he said,

"Your success and mine have always been very different, in everything we undertook."

"Not in everything," said Winthrop.

"Well — in almost everything."

"You say I do whatever I please. The difficulty with you sometimes, Will, is that you do not 'please' hard enough."

"It would be difficult for anybody to rival you in that," Rufus said with a mingling of expression, half ironical and half bitter. "You please so 'hard' that nobody else has a chance."

To which Winthrop made no answer.

"I am not sorry for it, Governor," Rufus said just as they reached their door, and with a very changed and quiet tone.

To which also Winthrop made no answer except by a look.

CHAPTER XXIV.

I watch thee from the quiet shore; Thy spirit up to mine can reach; But in dear words of human speech We two communicate no more. TENNYSON.

Mrs. Nettley was putting the finishing touches to her breakfast — that is, to her breakfast in prospect. A dish of fish and the coffee-pot stood keeping each other cheerful on one side the hearth; and Mrs. Nettley was just, with some trouble, hanging a large round griddle over the blazing fire. Her brother stood by, with his hands on his sides, and a rather complacent face.

"What's that flap-jack going on for?"

"For something I like, if you don't," said his sister. "George —"

Mrs Nettley stopped while her iron ladle was carefully bestowing large spoonfuls of batter all round the griddle.

"What?" said Mr. Inchbald, when it was done.

"Somebody up-stairs likes 'em. Don't you suppose you could get Mr. Landholm to come down. He likes 'em, and he don't get 'em now-a-days — nor too much of anything that's good. I don't know what he does live on, up there."

"Anything is better than those things," said her brother.

"Other people are more wise than you. Do go up and ask him, will you, George? I hope he gets good dinners somewhere, for it's very little of anything he cooks at that smoky little fireplace of his. Do you ever see him bring anything in?"

"Nothing. I don't see him bring himself in, you know. But he'll do. He'll have enough by and by, Dame Nettley. I know what stuff he's of."

"Yes, but no stuff'll last without help," said Mrs. Nettley, taking her cakes off the griddle and piling them up carefully. "Now I'm all ready, George, and you're standing there — it's always the way — and before you can mount those three pair of stairs and down again, these'll be cold. Do go, George; Mr. Landholm likes his cakes hot — I'll have another plateful ready before you'll be here; and then they're good for nothing but to throw away."

"That's what I think," said Mr. Inchbald; "but I'll bring him down if I can, to do what you like with 'em — only I must see first what this knocking wants at the front door."

"And left this one open too!" — said Mrs. Nettley, — "and now the whole house'll be full of smoke and everything — Well! — I might as well not ha' put this griddleful on." —

But the door having refused to latch, gave Mrs. Nettley a chance to hear what was going on. She stood, slice in hand, listening. Some unaccustomed tones came to her ear — then Mr. Inchbald's round hearty voice, saying,

"Yes sir — he is here — he is at home."

"I'd like to see him —"

And then the sounds of scraping feet entering the house.

"I'd like to go somewheres that I could see a fire, too," said the strange voice. "Ben ridin' all night, and got to set off again, you see, directly."

And Mrs. Nettley turned her cakes in a great hurry, as her brother pushed open the door and let the intruder in.

He took off his hat as he came, shewing a head that had seen some sixty winters, thinly dressed with yellow hair but not at all grey. The face was strong and Yankee-marked with shrewdness and reserve. His hat was wet and his shoulders, which had no protection of an overcoat.

"Do you wish to see Mr. Landholm in his room?" said Mr. Inchbald. "He's just coming down to breakfast."

"That'll do as well," said the stranger nodding. "And stop — you may give him this — maybe he'd as lieve have it up there."

Mr. Inchbald looked at the letter handed him, the outside of which at least told no tales; but his sister with a woman's quick instinct had already asked,

"Is anything the matter?"

"Matter?" — said the stranger, — "well, yes. — He's wanted to hum."

Both brother and sister stood now forgetting everything, both saying in a breath,

"Wanted, what for?"

"Well — there's sickness —"

"His father?"

"No, his mother."

Mrs. Nettley threw down her slice and ran out of the room. Mr. Inchbald turned away slowly in the other direction. The stranger, left alone, took a knife from the table and dished the neglected cakes, and sat down to dry himself between them and the coffee.

Mr. Inchbald slowly mounted the stairs to Winthrop's door, met the pleasant face that met him there, and gave the letter.

"I was coming to ask you down to breakfast with us, Mr. Landholm; but somebody has just come with that for you, and wishes you to have it at once."

The pleasant face grew grave, and the seal was broken, and the letter unfolded. It was a folio half sheet, of coarse yellowish paper, near the upper end of which a very few lines were irregularly written.

"My dear son

"It is with great pain I write to tell you that you must leave all and hasten home if you would see your mother. Friend Underhill will take this to you, and your shortest way will be, probably, to hire a horse in M. and travel night and day; as the time of the boat is uncertain and the stage does not make very good time — Her illness has been so short that we did not know it was necessary to alarm you before. My dear son, come without delay —

"Your father,

"W. Landholm."

Mr. Inchbald watched the face and manner of his friend as he read, and after he read, these few words, — but the one expressed only gravity, the other, action. Mr. Inchbald felt he could do nothing, and slowly went down stairs again to Mr. Underhill. He found him still over the fire between the cakes and the coffee. But Mr. Inchbald totally forgot to be hospitable, and not a word was said till Winthrop came in and he and the letter-bringer had wrung each other's hand, with a brief 'how d' ye do.'

"How did you leave them, Mr. Underhill?"

"Well — they were wantin' you pretty bad —"

"Did she send for me?"

"Well — no — I guess not," said the other with something of hesitancy, or of consideration, in his speech. Winthrop stood silent a moment.

"I shall take horse immediately. You will go — how?"

"May as well ride along with you," said Mr. Underhill, settling his coat. "I'm wet — a trifle — but may as well ride it off as any way. Start now?"

"Have you breakfasted?"

"Well — no, I hain't had time, you see — I come straight to you."

"Mr. Inchbald, I must go to the office a few minutes — will you give my friend a mouthful?"

"But yourself, Mr. Landholm?"

"I have had breakfast."

Mr. Inchbald did his duty as host then; but though his guest used despatch, the 'mouthful' was hardly a hungry man's breakfast when Winthrop was back again. In a few minutes more the two were mounted and on their way up the right bank of the river.

They rode silently. At least if Mr. Underhill's wonted talkativeness found vent at all, it was more than Winthrop was able ever to recollect. He could remember nothing of the ride but his own thoughts; and it seemed to him afterwards that they must have been stunning as well as deafening; so vague and so blended was the impression of them mixed up with the impression of everything else. It was what Mr. Underhill called 'falling weather'; the rain dropped lightly, or by turns changing to mist hung over the river and wreathed itself about the hills, and often stood across his path; as if to bid the eye turn inward, for space to range without it might not have. And passing all the other journeys he had made up and down that road, some of them on horseback as he was now, Winthrop's thoughts went back to that first one, when through ill weather and discouragement he had left the home he was now seeking, to enter upon his great-world career. Why did they so? He had been that road in the rain since; he had been there in all weathers; he had been there often with as desponding a heart as brought him down that first time; which indeed did not despond at all then, though it felt the weight of life's undertakings and drawbacks. And the warm rain, and yellow, sun-coloured mist of this April day, had no likeness to the cold, pitiless, pelting December storm. Yet passing all the times between, his mind went back constantly to that first one. He felt over again, though as in a dream, its steps of loneliness and heart-sinking — its misty looking forward — and most especially that Bible word 'Now' — which his little sister's finger had pointed out to him. He remembered how constantly that day it came back to him in everything he looked at, — from the hills, from the river, from the beat of the horses' hoofs, from the falling rain. 'Now' — 'now' — he remembered how he had felt it that day; he had almost forgotten it since; but now it came up again to his mind as if that day had been but yesterday. What brought it there? Was it the unrecognized, unallowed sense, that the one of all the world who most longed to have him obey that word, might be to- day beyond seeing him obey it — for ever? Was it possibly, that passing over the bridge of Mirza's vision he suddenly saw himself by the side of one of the open trap-doors, and felt that some stay, some security he needed, before his own foot should open one for itself? He did not ask; he did not try to order the confused sweep of feeling which for the time passed over him; one dread idea for the time held mastery of all others, and kept that day's ride all on the edge of that open trap-door. Whose foot had gone down there? — And under that thought, — woven in with the various tapestry of shower and sunshine, meadow and hillside, that clothed his day's journey to the sense, — were the images of that day in December — that final leaving of home and his mother, that rainy cold ride on the stage-coach, Winnie's open Bible, and the 'Now,' to which her finger, his mother's prayers, and his own conscience, had pointed all the day long.

It made no difference, that as they went on, this April day changed from rain and mist to the most brilliant sunshine. The mists rolled away, down the river and along the gulleys of the mountains; the clouds scattered from off the blue sky, which looked down clear, fair, and soft, as if Mirza's bridge were never under it. The little puddles of water sparkled in the sunshine and reflected the blue; the roads made haste to dry; the softest of spring airs wafted down from the hill-sides a spicy remembrance of budding shoots and the drawn-out sweetness of pine and fir and hemlock and cedar. The day grew sultrily warm. But though sunlight and spring winds carried their tokens to memory's gates and left them there, they were taken no note of at the time, by one traveller, and the other had no mental apparatus fine enough to gather them up.

He had feeling or delicacy enough of another kind, however, to keep him quiet. He sometimes looked at Winthrop; never spoke to him. Almost never; if he spoke at all, it was in some aside or counsel-taking with himself about the weather, the way, or the prospect and management of the farming along the river. They stopped only to bait or to rest their horses; even at those times Mr. Underhill restrained himself not only from talking to Winthrop but from talking before him; and except when his companion was at a distance, kept as quiet as he. Winthrop asked no questions.

The road grew hilly, and in some places rough, trying to the horses; and by the time they were fairly among the mountain land that stood down far south from Wut-a-qut-o, the sun was nearing the fair broken horizon line of the western shore. The miles were long now, when they were no longer many; the road was more and more steep and difficult; the horses weary. The sun travelled faster than they did. A gentler sunlight never lay in spring-time upon those hills and river; it made the bitter turmoil and dread of the way seem the more harsh and ungentle. Their last stopping-place was at Cowslip's Mill — on the spot where seven years before, Winthrop had met the stage- coach and its consignment of ladies.

"The horses must have a minute here — and a bite," said Mr. Underhill letting himself slowly down from his beast; — "lose no time by it."

For a change of posture Winthrop threw himself off, and stood leaning on the saddle, while his travelling companion and Mr. Cowslip came up the rise bringing water and food to the horses. No more than a grave nod was exchanged between Winthrop and his old neighbour; neither said one word; and as soon as the buckets were empty the travellers were on their way again.

It was but a little way now. The sun had gone behind the mountain, the wind had died, the perfect stillness and loveliness of evening light was over hill and river and the home land, as the riders came out from the woods upon the foot of the bay and saw it all before them. A cloudless sky, — the white clear western light where the sun had been, — the bright sleeping water, — the sweet lights and shades on Wut-a-qut-o and its neighbour hills, the lower and darker promontory throwing itself across the landscape; and from one spot, that half-seen centre of the picture, the little brown speck on Shah-wee-tah, — a thin, thin wreath of smoke slowly went up. Winthrop for one moment looked, and then rode on sharply and Mr. Underhill was fain to bear him company. They had rounded the bay — they had ridden over the promontory neck — they were within a little of home, — when Winthrop suddenly drew bridle. Mr. Underhill stopped. Winthrop turned towards him, and asked the question not asked till then.

"How is it at home, Mr. Underhill?"

And Mr. Underhill without looking at him, answered in the same tones, a moment of pause between,

"She's gone."

Winthrop's horse carried him slowly forward; Mr. Underhill's was seen no more that night — unless by Mr. Cowslip and his son.

Slowly Winthrop's horse carried him forward — but little time then was needed to bring him round to the back of the house, at the kitchen door, whither the horse-path led. It was twilight now; the air was full of the perfume of cedars and pines, — the clear white light shone in the west yet. Winthrop did not see it. He only saw that there was no light in the windows. And that curl of thin smoke was the only thing he had seen stirring about the house. He got off his horse and went into the kitchen.

There was light enough to see who met him there. It was his father. There was hardly light to see faces; but Mr. Landholm laid both hands on his son's shoulders, saying,

"My dear boy! — it's all over! —"

And Winthrop laid his face on his father's breast, and for a few breaths, sobbed, as he had not done since — since his childish eyes had found hiding-place on that other breast that could rest them no more.

It was but a few minutes; — and manly sorrow had given way and taken again its quiet self-control; once and for ever. The father and son wrung each other's hands, the mute speech of hand to hand telling of mutual suffering and endurance, and affection, — all that could be told; and then after the pause of a minute; Winthrop moved on towards the family room, asking softly, "Is she here?" — But his father led him through, to the seldom-used east-room.

Asahel was there; but he neither spoke nor stirred. And old Karen was there, moving about on some trifling errand of duty; but her quick nature was under less government; it did not bear the sight of Winthrop. Dropping or forgetting what she was about, she came towards him with a bursting cry of feeling, half for herself, half sympathetic; and with the freedom of old acquaintance and affection and common grief, laid her shrivelled black hand on his shoulder and looked up into his face, saying, almost as his father had done, but with streaming eyes and quivering lips,

"My dear son! — she has gone! —"

Winthrop took the hand in his and gave it a moment's pressure, and then saying very gently but in a way that was obeyed, "Be quiet Karen," — he passed her and stood at his mother's bedside.

She was there — lying quietly in her last sleep. Herself and not another. All of her that could write and leave its character on features of clay, was shewn there still — in its beauty. The brow yet spoke the calm good sense which had always reigned beneath it; the lines of toil were on the cheek; the mouth had its old mingling of patience and hope and firm dignity — the dignity of meek assurance which looked both to the present and the future. It was there now, unchanged, unlessened; Winthrop read it; that as she had lived, so she had died, in sure expectation of 'the rest that remaineth.' Herself and no other! — ay! that came home too in another sense, with its hard stern reality, pressing home upon the heart and brain, till it would have seemed that nature could not bear it and must give way. But it did not. Winthrop stood and looked, fixedly and long, so fixedly that no one cared to interrupt him, but so calmly in his deep gravity that the standers-by were rather awed than distressed. And at last when he turned away and Asahel threw himself forward upon his neck, Winthrop's manner was as firm as it was kind; though he left them all then and forbade Asahel to follow him.

"The Lord bless him!" said Karen, loosing her tongue then and giving her tears leave at the same time. "And surely the Lord has blessed him, or he wouldn't ha' borne up so. She won't lose that one of her childr'n — she won't, no she won't! — I know she won't! —"

"Where is Winnie, Karen?" said Asahel suddenly.

"Poor soul! — I dun know," said Karen; — "she was afeard to see the Governor come home, and dursn't stop nowheres — I dun know where she's hid. — The Lord bless him! nobody needn't ha' feared him. He's her own boy — aint he her own boy! —"

Asahel went out to seek for his little sister, but his search was in vain. She was not to be seen nor heard of. Neither did Winthrop come to the sorrowful gathering which the remnant of the family made round the supper-table. In the house he was not; and wherever he was out of the house, he was beyond reach.

"Could they have gone away together?" said Asahel.

"No!" said his father.

"They didn't," said Clam. "I see him go off by himself."

"Which way?"

"Off among the trees," said Clam.

"Which way?" said Mr. Landholm.

"His back was to the house, and he was goin' off towards the river some place — I guess he didn't want no one to foller him."

"There aint no wet nor cold to hurt him," said Karen.

There was not; but they missed him.

And the house had been quiet, very quiet, for long after supper-time, when softly and cautiously one of the missing ones opened the door of the east-room and half came in. Only Karen sat there at the foot of the bed. Winnie came in and came up to her.

"He's not here, darlin'," said the old woman, — "and ye needn't ha' started from him. — O cold face, and white face! — what ha' you done with yourself, Winnie, to run away from him so? Ye needn't ha' feared him. Poor lamb! — poor white lamb! —"

The girl sat down on the floor and laid her face on Karen's lap, where the still tears ran very fast.

"Poor white lamb!" said the old woman, tenderly laying her wrinkled hand on Winnie's fair hair, — "Ye haven't eat a crumb — Karen'll fetch you a bit? — ye'll faint by the way —"

Winnie shook her head. "No — no."

"What did you run away for?" Karen went on. "Ye run away from your best comfort — but the Lord's help, Winnie; — he's the strongest of us all."

But something in that speech, Karen could not divine what, made Winnie sob convulsively; and she thought best to give up her attempts at counsel or comforting.

The wearied and weakened child must have needed both, for she wept unceasingly on Karen's knees till late in the night; and then in sheer weariness the heavy eyelids closed upon the tears that were yet ready to come. She slumbered, with her head still on Karen's lap.

"Poor lamb!" said Karen when she found it out, bending over to look at her, — "poor lamb! — she'll die of this if the Governor can't help her, — and she the Lord's child too. — Maybe best, poor child! — maybe best! — 'Little traveller Zion-ward' — I wish we were all up at those gates, O Lord! —"

The last words were spoken with a heavy sigh, and then the old woman changed her tone.

"Winnie! — Winnie! — go to bed — go to bed! Your mother'd say it if she was here."

Winnie raised her head and opened her eyes, and Karen repeating her admonition in the same key, the child got up and went mechanically out of the room, as if to obey it.

It was by this time very late in the night; the rest of the inmates of the house had long been asleep. No lights were burning except in the room she had left. But opening the door of the kitchen, through which her way lay to her own room, Winnie found there was a glimmer from the fire, which usually was covered up close; and coming further into the room, she saw some one stretched at full length upon the floor at the fireside. Another step, and Winnie knew it was Winthrop. He was asleep, his head resting on a rolled-up cloak against the jamb. Winnie's tears sprang forth again, but she would not waken him. She kneeled down by his side, to look at him, as well as the faint fireglow would let her, and to weep over him; but her strength was worn out. It refused even weeping; and after a few minutes, nestling down as close to him as she could get, she laid one arm and her head upon his breast and went to sleep too. More peacefully and quietly than she had slept for several nights.

The glimmer from the fire-light died quite away, and only the bright stars kept watch over them. The moon was not where she could look in at those north or east kitchen windows. But by degrees the fair April night changed. Clouds gathered themselves up from all quarters of the horizon, till they covered the sky; the faces of the stars were hid; thunder began to roll along among the hills, and bright incessant flashes of white lightning kept the room in a glare. The violence of the storm did not come over Shah-wee-tah, but it was more than enough to rouse Winthrop, whose sleep was not so deep as his little sister's. And when Winnie did come to her consciousness she found herself lifted from the floor and on her brother's lap; he half sitting up; his arms round her, and her head still on his breast. Her first movement of awakening was to change her position and throw her arms around his neck.

"Winnie —" he said gently.

The flood-gates burst then, and her heart poured itself out, her head alternately nestling in his neck and raised up to kiss his face, and her arms straining him with nervous eagerness.

"O Winthrop! — O Winthrop! — O dear Winthrop! —" was the cry, as fast as sobs and kisses would let her.

"Winnie —" said her brother again.

"O Winthrop! — why didn't you come!"

He did not answer that, except by the heaving breast which poor Winnie could not feel.

"I am here now, dear Winnie."

"O Winthrop! —" Winnie hesitated, and the burden of her heart would burst forth, — "why aren't you a Christian! —"

It was said with a most bitter rush of tears, as if she felt that the most precious thing she had, lacked of preciousness; that her most sure support needed a foundation. But when a minute had stilled the tears, and she could hear, she heard him say, very calmly,

"I am one, Winnie."

Her tears ceased absolutely on his shoulder, and Winnie was for a moment motionless. Then as he did not speak again, she unclasped her arms and drew back her head to look at him. The constant flashes of light gave her chance enough.

"You heard me right," he said.

"Are you?" — she said wistfully.

"By God's help — this night and for ever."

Winnie brought her hands together, half clapping, half clasping them, and then threw them to their former position around his neck, exclaiming, —

"Oh if she had known it before —!"

There was no answer to that, of words; and Winnie could not see the sudden paleness which witnessed to the answer within. But it came, keen as those lightning flashes, home-thrust as the thunderbolts they witnessed to, that his 'now' had come too late for her.

The lightnings grew fainter, and failed — the thunder muttered off in the distance, and ceased to be heard — the clouds rolled down the river and scattered away, just as the dawn was breaking on Wut-a-qut-o. There had been nothing spoken in the farmhouse kitchen since Winnie's last words. Winthrop was busy with his own thoughts, which he did not tell; and Winnie had been giving hers all the expression they could bear, in tears and kisses and the strong clasp of her weak arm, and the envious resting, trusting, lay of her head upon Winthrop's shoulder and breast. When the glare of the lightning had all gone, and the grey light was beginning to walk in at the windows, her brother spoke to her.

"Winnie, — you would be better in bed."

"Oh no, — I wouldn't. — Do you want me to go, Governor?" she added presently.

"Not if you could rest as well here, but you want rest, Winnie."

"I couldn't rest so well anywhere!" — said Winifred energetically.

"Then let me take the big chair and give you a chance."

He took it, and took her in his arms again, where she nestled herself down as if she had been a child; with an action that touchingly told him anew that she could rest so well nowhere else.

"Governor —" she said, when her head had found its place — "you haven't kissed me."

"I did, Winnie, — it must have been before you were awake."

But he kissed her again; and drawing one or two long breaths, of heart-weariness and heart-rest, Winnie went to sleep.

The grey dawn brightened rapidly; and a while after, Karen came in. It was fair morning then. She stood by the hearth, opposite the two, looking at them.

"Has she been here all night?" she whispered.

Winthrop nodded.

"Poor lamb! — Ye're come in good time, Master Winthrop."

She turned and began to address herself to the long gone-out fire in the chimney.

"What are you going to do, Karen?" he said softly.

She looked back at him, with her hand in the ashes.

"Haven't you watched to-night?"

"I've watched a many nights," she said shaking her head and beginning again to rake for coals in the cold fireplace, — "this aint the first. That aint nothin'. I'll watch now, dear, 'till the day dawn and the shadows flee away'; — what else should Karen do? 'Taint much longer, and I'll be where there's no night again. O come, sweet day! —" said the old woman clasping her hands together as she crouched in the fireplace, and the tears beginning to trickle down, — "when the mother and the childr'n'll all be together, and Karen somewheres — and our home won't be broken up no more! —"

She raked away among the ashes with an eager trembling hand.

"Karen, —" said Winthrop softly, — "Leave that."

"What, dear?" — she said.

"Leave that."

"Who'll do it, dear?"

"I will."

She obeyed him, as perhaps she would have done for no one else. Rising up, Winthrop carried his sleeping sister without wakening her, and laid her on the bed in her own little room, which opened out of the kitchen; then he came back and went to work in the fireplace. Karen yielded it to him with equal admiration and unwillingness; remarking to herself as her relieved hands went about other business, that, "for sure, nobody could build a fire handsomer than Mr. Winthrop"; — and that "he was his mother's own son, and deserved to be!"

CHAPTER XXV.

That thee is sent receive in buxomness; The wrestling of this worlde askith a fall; Here is no home, here is but wildernesse, Forthe, pilgrim, forthe, o best out of thy stall, Loke up on high, and thanke thy God of all. CHAUCER.

As soon as she was awake Winnie sought her brother's side again; and from that moment never left it when it was possible to be there. In his arms, if she could; close by his side, if nearer might not be; she seemed to have no freedom of life but in his shadow. Her very grief was quieted there; either taking its tone from his calm strength, or binding itself with her own love for him. Her brother was the sturdy tree round which this poor little vine threw its tendrils, and climbed and flourished, all it could.

He had but a few days to spend at Shahweetah now. Towards the end of them, she was one evening sitting, as usual, on his knee; silent and quiet. They were alone.

"Winnie," said her brother, "what shall I do with you?"

She put her arms round his neck and kissed him, — a very frequent caress; but she made no answer.

"Shall I take you to Mannahatta with me?"

"Oh yes, Winthrop!"

It was said with breathless eagerness.

"I am almost afraid to do it."

"Why, Winthrop?"

"Hush —" he said gently; for her words came out with a sort of impatient hastiness; — "You don't know what kind of a place it is, Winnie. It isn't much like what home used to be."

"Nor this aint, neither," she murmured, nestling her head in his bosom.

"But you wouldn't have the free air and country — I am afraid it wouldn't be so good for you."

"Yes it would — it would be better for me. — I can't hardly be good at all, Governor, except where you are. I get cross now- a-days — it seems I can't help it — and I didn't use to do so —"

How gently the hand that was not round her was laid upon her cheek, as if at once forbidding and soothing her sorrow. For it was true, — Winnie's disease had wrought to make her irritable and fretful, very different from her former self. And it was true that Winthrop's presence governed it, as no other thing could.

"Would you rather go with me, Winnie?"

"Oh yes, Governor! —oh yes!"

"Then you shall."

He went himself first to make arrangements, which he well knew were very necessary. That one little attic room of his and that closet which was at once Mother Hubbard's cupboard and his clothes press, could never do anything for the comfort of his little sister. He went home and electrified Mrs. Nettley with the intelligence that he must leave her and seek larger quarters, which he knew her house could not give.

"To be sure," said Mrs. Nettley in a brown study, — "the kitchen's the kitchen, — and there must be a parlour, — and George's painting room, — and the other's my bedroom, — and George sleeps in that other little back attic. — Well, Mr. Landholm, let's think about it. We'll see what can be done. We can't let you go away — George would rather sleep on the roof."

"He would do what is possible, Mrs. Nettley; and so would I."

It was found to be possible that "the other little back attic" should be given up. Winthrop never knew how, and was not allowed to know. But it was so given that he could not help taking. It was plain that they would have been worse straitened than in their accommodations, if he had refused their kindness and gone somewhere else.

Mrs. Nettley would gladly have done what she could towards furnishing the same little back attic for Winnie's use; but on this point Winthrop was firm. He gathered himself the few little plain things the room wanted, from the cheapest sources whence they could be obtained; even that was a serious drain upon his purse. He laid in a further supply of fuel, for Winnie's health, he knew, would not stand the old order of things, — a fire at meal-times and an old cloak at other times when it was not very cold. Happily it was late in the season and much more fire would not be needed; a small stock of wood he bought, and carried up and bestowed in the closet; he could put his clothes in Winnie's room now and the closet need no longer act as a wardrobe. A few very simple stores to add to Mother Hubbard's shelves, and Winthrop had stretched his limited resources pretty well, and had not much more left than would take him to Wut-a-qut-o, and bring him back again.

"I don't see but I shall have to sell the farm," said Mr. Landholm on this next visit of his son's.

"Why, sir?"

"To pay off the mortgage — that mortgage to Mr. Haye."

Winthrop was silent.

"I can't meet the interest on it; —I haven't been able to pay any these five years," said Mr. Landholm with a sigh. "If he don't foreclose, I must. — I guess I'll take Asahel and go to the West."

"Don't do it hastily, father."

"No," said Mr. Landholm with another sigh; — "but it'll come to that."

Winthrop had no power to help it. And the money had been borrowed for him and Rufus. Most for Rufus. But it had been for them; and with this added thought of sorrowful care, he reached Mannahatta with his little sister.

It was early of a cold spring day, the ground white with a flurry of snow, the air raw, when he brought Winnie from the steamboat and led her, half frightened, half glad, through the streets to her new home. Winnie's tongue was very still, her eyes very busy. Her brother left the eyes to make their own notes and comments, at least he made none, till they had reached the corner of Little South St. He made none then; the door was opened softly, and he brought her up the stairs and into his room without disturbing or falling in with anybody. Putting her on a calico-covered settee, Winthrop pulled off his coat and set about making a fire.

Winnie had cried all the day before and as much of the night as her poor eyelids could keep awake; and now in a kind of lull, sat watching him.

"Governor, you'll catch cold —"

"Not if I can make the fire catch," said he quietly.

"But you wanted me to keep on my things."

"Did you want to take them off?"

Winnie sat silent again, shrugging her shoulders to the chill air. But presently the fire caught, and the premonitory snapping and crackling of the kindling wood gave notice of a sudden change of temperature. Winnie's feelings took the cheery influence of the promise and she began to talk in a more hearty strain.

"Is this your room, Winthrop?"

"This is my room, Winnie. Yours is there, next to it."

"Through that door?"

"No — through the entry; — that is the door of my storehouse."

Winnie got up to look at it.

"'Tisn't a very large storehouse," was her conclusion.

"And not much in it. But the large storehouses are not far off, Winnie. Shall I leave you here for five minutes, while I go to get something from one of them?"

"Do you mean out of doors? — from the shops?"

"Yes. Shall I leave you five minutes?"

"O yes!"

He had come before her and was holding both her hands. Before he let them go he stooped down and kissed her.

It was not a very common thing for Winthrop to kiss her; and Winnie sat quieted under the power and the pleasure of it till the five minutes were run out and he had got back again. His going and coming was without seeing any one of the house; a fact owing to Mrs. Nettley's being away to market and Mr. Inchbald out on another errand.

Winthrop came in with his hands full of brown papers. Winnie watched him silently again while he put his stores in the closet and brought out plates and knives and forks.

"Where do you sleep, Governor?"

"In a pleasanter place than I slept in last night," said her brother.

"Yes, but where? I don't see any bed."

"You don't see it by day. It only shews itself at night."

"But where is it, Governor?"

"You're sitting on it, Winnie."

"This! —"

"What is the matter with it?"

"Why, —" said Winnie, looking dismayfully at the couch with which Winthrop had filled the place of his bed, transferred to her room, — "it's too narrow!"

"I don't fall out of it," said her brother quietly.

"It isn't comfortable!"

"I am, when I am on it."

"But it's hard!"

"Not if I don't think it is hard."

"I don't see how that makes any difference," said Winnie discontentedly. "It's hard to me."

"But it's not your bed, Winnie."

"I don't like it to be yours, Winthrop."

He was busy laying a slice of ham on the coals and putting a skillet of water over the fire; and then coming to her side he began, without speaking, and with a pleasant face, to untie the strings of her bonnet and to take off that and her other coverings, with a gentle sort of kindness that made itself felt and not heard. Winnie bore it with difficulty; her features moved and trembled.

"It's too much for you to have to take care of me," she said in a voice changed from its former expression.

"Too much?" said Winthrop.

"Yes."

"Why?"

"It's too much. Can you do it?"

"I think I can take care of you, Winnie. You forget who has promised to take care of us both."

She threw her arms round his neck exclaiming, "I forget everything! —"

"No, not quite," said he.

"I do! — except that I love you. I wish I could be good, Winthrop! — even as good as I used to be."

"That wouldn't content me," said her brother; — "I want you to be better."

She clasped her arms in an earnest clasp about his neck, very close, but said nothing.

"Now sit down, Winnie," said he presently, gently disengaging her arms and putting her into a chair, — "or something else will not be good enough."

She watched him again, while he turned the ham and put eggs in the skillet, and fetched out an odd little salt-cellar and more spoons and cups for the eggs.

"But Winthrop!" she said starting, — "where's your tea- kettle?"

"I don't know. I have never had it yet, Winnie."

"Never had a tea-kettle?"

"No."

"Then how do you do, Winthrop?"

"I do without," he said lightly. "Can't you?"

"Do without a tea-kettle!"

"Yes."

"But how do you make tea and coffee?"

"I don't make them."

"Don't you have tea and coffee?"

"No, except when somebody else makes it for me."

"I'll make it for you, Winthrop!"

"No, Winnie — I don't want you to have it any more than myself."