"Ah! -- that is what we used to say. -- I don't see how it is to

be done."

"It is to be done in many ways, Rufus; in many courses of

action; and there is hardly one you can set your hand to, in

which it may not be done."

Rufus again struggled with some feeling that was too much for

him.

"Your notions have changed a little from the old ones, -- and I

have kept mine," he said.

"I spoke of _making your mark_, -- not of being seen to do it,"

his brother returned.

Again Rufus was silent.

"Well but the question is not of that now," he said, "but of

doing _something;_ -- to escape from the dishonour and the misery

of doing nothing."

"Still you have not told me your thoughts, Will. You are not

fit for a merchant."

"I'll never enter a counting-house again! -- for anything!" was

Rufus's reply.

"If I were in your place, I should take up my old trade of

engineering again, just where I left it off."

Rufus walked, and walked.

"But I am fit for better things," -- he said at length.

"Then you are fit for that."

"I suppose that follows," said Rufus with some disdainful

expression.

"There is no more respectable profession."

"It gives a man small chance to distinguish himself," said

Rufus, -- "and it takes one out of the world."

"Distinction may be attained almost anywhere," said Winthrop.

"'Who sweeps a room as for thy laws,

"'Makes that and th' action fine.'"

"I should like to see _you_ do it!" was Rufus's scornful

rejoinder.

"What?"

"Sweep rooms by way of distinction."

"I don't know about the distinction," said Winthrop; "but the

_thing_ you may see me do any morning, if you come at the right

hour."

"Sweep these rooms?"

"With a broomstick."

"Why Winthrop, that's beneath you!"

"I have been thinking so lately," said Winthrop. "It wasn't,

in the days when I couldn't afford to pay any one for doing

it; and those days reached down to a very late point."

"Afford!" said Rufus, standing still in his walk; -- "Why you

have made money enough ever since you began practice, to

afford such a thing as that."

"Ay -- if I could have put it all on the floor."

"Where had you to put it?"

"I had Mr. Inchbald to reward for his long trust in me, and

Mr. Herder to reimburse for his kindness, -- and some other

sources of expenditure to meet."

"Mr. Herder could have been paid out of the costs of this

lawsuit."

"No, he couldn't."

"And thereupon, you would recommend the profession of a

street-sweeper to me!" said Rufus, beginning his walk with

renewed energy.

"On the whole, I think I would not," said Winthrop gravely. "I

am of opinion you can do something better."

"I don't like engineering!" said Rufus presently.

"What _do_ you like?"

Rufus stopped and stood looking thoughtfully on the table

where Winthrop's papers lay.

"I consider that, to be as honourable, as useful, and I

should think quite as pleasant a way of life, as the one I

follow."

"Do you? --" said Rufus, looking at the long 'answer in

Chancery.'

"I would as lieve go into it to-morrow, and make over my

inkstand to you, if I were only fit for that and you for

this."

"Would you!" said Rufus, mentally conceding that his brother

was 'fit' for anything.

"Just as lieve."

Rufus's brow lightened considerably, and he took up his walk

again.

"What would you like better, Will?"

"I don't know --" said Rufus meditatively -- "I believe I'll

take your advice. There was an offer made to me a week or two

ago -- at least I was spoken to, in reference to a Southern

piece of business --"

"Not another agency?"

"No -- no, engineering; -- but I threw it off, not thinking

then, or not knowing, that I would have anything more to do

with the matter -- I dare say it's not too late yet."

"But Will," said his brother, "whatever choice you make now,

it is your last choice."

"How do you know it is my last choice?" said Rufus.

"Because it ought to be."

Rufus took to silence and meditating again.

"Any profession rightly managed, will carry you to the goal of

honour; but no two will, ridden alternately."

"It seems so," said Rufus bitterly.

And he walked and meditated, back and forth through the room;

while Winthrop lost himself in his 'answer.' The silence

lasted this time till Rufus came up to the table and extending

his hand bid his brother 'good night.'

"Are you going?" said Winthrop starting up.

"Yes -- going; and going South, and going to be an engineer,

and if possible to reach the goal of honour on the back of

that calling, by some mysterious road which as yet I see not."

"Stay here to-night, Will."

"No, I can't -- I've got to see somebody."

"All night?"

"Why, no," said Rufus smiling. "I suppose I could come back;

more especially as I am going bona fide away. By the way,

Winthrop, do you know they say the yellow fever is here?"

"I know they say so."

"What will you do?"

"Nothing."

"I mean, of course, if the report is true."

"So I mean."

"But you will not stay here?"

"I think I will."

"But it would be much better to go out of town."

"If I think so, I'll go."

"I'll make you think so," said Rufus putting on his hat, -- "or

else I won't go engineering! I'll be back in an hour."

CHAPTER VIII.

Yea, men may wonder, while they scan

A living, thinking, feeling man,

In such a rest his heart to keep;

But angels say, -- and through the word

I ween their blessed smile is heard, --

"He giveth his beloved sleep!"

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.

Notwithstanding however Rufus's assurance, he did go off to

his engineering and he did not succeed in changing his

brother's mind. Winthrop abode in his place, to meet whatever

the summer had in store for him.

It brought the city's old plague, though not with such fearful

presence as in years past. Still the name and the dread of it

were abroad, and enough of its power to justify them. Many

that could, ran away from the city; and business, if it was

not absolutely checked, moved sluggishly. There was much less

than usual done.

There was little in Winthrop's line, certainly. Yet in the

days of vacant courts and laid-by court business, the tenant

of Mr. Inchbald's attic went out and came in as often as

formerly. What he did with his time was best known to himself.

"I wonder how he does, now, all alone," said Mrs. Nettley to

her brother.

"I've a notion he isn't so much of the time alone," said Mr.

Inchbald. "He's not at home any more than he used to be, nor

so much. I hear him going up or down the stairs -- night and

day."

"Surely there are no courts now?" said Mrs. Nettley.

"Never are in August -- and especially not now, of course."

"I'm afraid he's lonesome, poor fellow!"

"Never saw a fellow look less like it," said Mr. Inchbald.

"He's a strong man, he is, in his heart and mind. I should

expect to see one of the pyramids of Egypt come down as soon

as either of 'em. Lonesome? I _never_ saw him look lonesome."

"He has a trick of not shewing what he feels then," said his

sister. "I've seen him times when I know he _felt_ lonesome, --

though as you say, I can't say he shewed it. He's a strong

build of a man, too, George."

"Like body, like mind," said her brother. "Yes. I like to see

a man all of a piece. But his brother has a finer figure."

"Do you think so?" said Mrs. Nettley. "That's for a painter.

Now I like Winthrop's the best."

"That's for a woman," said Mr. Inchbald laughing. "You always

like what you love."

"Well, what do you suppose he finds to keep him out so much of

the time?"

"I don't know," said Mr. Inchbald, -- "and I daren't ask him. I

doubt some poor friends of his know."

"Why do you?"

"I can't tell you why; -- something -- the least trifle, once or

twice, has given me the idea."

"He's a Christian to look at!" said Mrs. Nettley, busying

herself round her stove and speaking in rather an undertone.

"He's worse than a sermon to me, many times."

Her brother turned slowly and went out, thereby confessing,

his sister thought, that Winthrop had been as bad as a sermon

to him.

As he went out he saw a girl just mounting the stairs.

"Is Mr. Landholm in?" she said putting her head over the

balusters.

"I don't know, my girl -- I think he may be."

"I'll know before long," she rejoined, taking the stairs at a

rate that shewed she meant what she said. Like no client at

law that ever sought his lawyer's chambers, on any errand.

Before Mr. Inchbald had reached the first landing, she was

posted before the desired door, and had tapped there with very

alert fingers. Winthrop opened the door.

"Clam!" -- said he. -- "Come in."

"Mr. Winthrop," said Clam, coming in as slowly as she had

mounted the stairs fast, and speaking with unusual

deliberation, and not in the least out of breath, -- "don't you

want to help the distressed?"

"What's the matter, Clam?"

"Why Mr. Haye's took, and Miss 'Lizabeth's all alone with him;

and she's a little too good to be let die of fright and worry,

if she ain't perfect. Few people are."

"All alone!"

"She's keeping house with him all alone this minute."

"What do you mean by all alone?"

"When there ain't but two people in the house and one o'

them's deathly sick."

"Where are the servants? and Mrs. Haye?"

"They was all afraid they'd be took -- she and them both; so

they all run -- the first one the best feller. I stayed, 'cause

I thought the yaller fever wouldn't do much with one o' my

skin; and anyhow it was as good to die in the house as in the

street -- I'd rather."

"When did they go?" said Winthrop beginning to put up books

and papers.

"Cleared out this mornin' -- as soon as they knowed what was

the matter with Mr. Haye."

"His wife too?" said Winthrop.

"Not she! _she_ went off for fear she'd be scared -- years ago."

"Has Miss Haye sent for no friends?"

"She says there ain't none to send to; and I guess there

ain't."

"Run home to your mistress, Clam, as fast as you can. -- When

was Mr. Haye taken sick?"

"Some time yesterday. Then you're comin', Mr. Winthrop?"

"Yes. Run."

Clam ran home. But quick as her speed had been, when she got

the handle of the door in her hand she saw a figure that she

knew, coming down the street; and waited for him to come up.

Winthrop and she passed into the house together.

The gentleman turned into one of the deserted parlours; and

Clam with a quick and soft step ran up stairs and into the

sick room. Mr. Haye lay there unconscious. Elizabeth was

sitting by the side of the bed, with a face of stern and

concentrated anxiety.

"Here's the stuff," said Clam, setting some medicine on the

table; -- "and there's a gentleman down stairs that wants to

see you, Miss 'Lizabeth -- on business."

"Business!" said Elizabeth, -- "Did you tell him what was in

the house?"

"I told him," said Clam, "and he don't care. He wants to see

you."

Elizabeth had no words to waste, nor heart to speak them. She

got up and went down stairs and in at the open parlour door,

like a person who walks in a dream through a dreadful

labyrinth of pain, made up of what used to be familiar objects

of pleasure. So she went in. But so soon as her eye caught the

figure standing before the fireplace, though she did not know

what he had come there for, only that he was there, her heart

sprang as to a pillar of hope. She stopped short and her two

hands were brought together with an indescribable expression,

telling of relief.

"Oh Mr. Landholm! what brought you here!"

He came forward to where she stood and took one of her hands;

and felt that she was trembling like a shaking leaf.

"How is your father?" was his question.

"I don't know!" said Elizabeth bending down her head while

tears began to run fast, -- "I don't know anything about

sickness -- I never was with anybody before --"

She had felt one other time the gentle kind hands which, while

her own eyes were blinded with tears, led her and placed her

on the sofa. Elizabeth took the sofa cushion in both arms and

laid her head upon it, turning her face from her companion;

and her whole frame was racked and shaken with terrible

agitation.

In a few minutes this violent expression of feeling came to an

end. She took her arms from the pillow and sat up and spoke

again to the friend at her side; who meanwhile had been

perfectly quiet, offering neither to check nor to comfort her.

Elizabeth went back to a repetition of her last remark, as if

for an excuse.

"I never even tried to nurse anybody before -- and the doctor

couldn't stay with me this morning --"

"I will do both now," said Winthrop.

"What?" -- said Elizabeth looking at him bewilderedly.

"Stay with you, and take care of Mr. Haye."

"Oh no! you must not!" she said with a sort of eager

seriousness; -- "I shouldn't like to have you."

"I have seen something of the disease," he said smiling

slightly, "and I am not afraid of it. -- Are you?"

"Oh yes! -- oh yes!!"

How much was confessed in the tone of those words! -- and she

hid her face again. But her companion made no remark.

"Is there no friend you would like to have sent for?"

"No," said Elizabeth, -- "not one! not one here -- and not

anywhere, that I should care to have with me."

"May I go up and see Mr. Haye now?" he said presently. "Which

is the room?"

Elizabeth rose up to shew him.

"No," he said, gently motioning her back, -- "I am going alone.

You must stay here."

"But I must go too, Mr. Landholm! --"

"Not if I go," he said.

"But I am his daughter, -- I must."

"I am not his daughter -- so as far as that goes we are even.

And by your own confession you know nothing of the matter; and

I do. No -- you must not go above this floor."

"Until when, Mr. Landholm?" said Elizabeth looking terrified.

"Until new rules are made," he said quietly. "While you can do

nothing in your father's room, both for him and for you it is

much better that you should not be there."

"And can't I do anything?" said Elizabeth.

"If I think you are wanted, I will let you know. Meanwhile

there is one thing that can be done everywhere."

He spoke, looking at her with a face of steady kind gravity.

Elizabeth could not meet it; she trembled with the effort she

made to control herself.

"It is the thing of all others that I cannot do, Mr.

Landholm."

"Learn it now, then. Which is the room?"

Elizabeth told him, without raising her eyes; and stood

motionless on the floor where he left her, without stirring a

finger, as long as she could hear the sound of his footsteps.

They went first to the front door, and she heard him turn the

key; then they went up the stairs.

The locking of that door went to her heart, with a sense of

comfort, of dependence, of unbounded trust in the hand, the

heart, the head, that had done it. It roused, or the taking

off of restraint roused again, all the tumult of passions that

had raged after her first coming in. She dropped on her knees

by the sofa and wrapping her arms round the cushion as she had

done before, she laid her head down on it, and to all feeling

laid her heart down too; such bitter and deep and long sobs

shook and racked her breast.

She was alive to nothing but feeling and the indulgence of it,

and careless how much time the indulgence of it might take. It

was passion's time. She was startled when two hands took hold

of her and a grave voice said,

"If you do in this way, I shall have two patients instead of

one, Miss Elizabeth."

Elizabeth suffered herself to be lifted up and placed on the

sofa, and sat down like a child. Even at the instant came a

flash of recollection bringing back the time, long past, when

Winthrop had lifted her out of the rattlesnake's way. She felt

ashamed and rebuked.

"This is not the lesson I set you," he said gently.

Elizabeth's head drooped lower. She felt that he _had_ two

patients -- if he had only known it!

"You might set me a great many lessons that I should be slow

to learn, Mr. Landholm," she said sadly.

"I hope not," he said in his usual tone. "There is no present

occasion for this distress. I cannot see that Mr. Haye'

symptoms are particularly unfavourable."

Elizabeth could have answered a great deal to that; but she

only said, tearfully,

"How good you are to take care of him!"

"I will be as good as I can," said he smiling a little. "I

should like to have you promise to do as much."

"That would be to promise a great deal, Mr. Landholm," said

Elizabeth looking up earnestly.

"What then?"

Elizabeth looked down and was silent, but musing much to

herself.

"Is it too much of a promise to make?" said he gravely.

"No --" said Elizabeth slowly, -- "but more than I am ready to

make."

"Why is that?"

"Because, Mr. Landholm," said she looking up again at him, "I

don't believe I should keep it if I made it."

"You expect me to say, in that case you are quite right not to

make it. No, -- you are quite wrong."

He waited a little; but said no more, and Elizabeth could not.

Then he left the room and she heard him going _down stairs!_ Her

first thought was to spring up and go after to help him to

whatever he wanted; then she remembered that he and Clam could

manage it without her, and that he would certainly choose to

have it so. She curled herself up on her sofa and laying her

head on the cushion in more quiet wise, she went off into a

long fit of musing; for Winthrop's steps, when they came from

down stairs went straight up stairs again, without turning

into the parlour. She mused, on her duty, her danger, her

sorrow and her joy. There was something akin to joy in the

enormous comfort, rest, and pleasure she felt in Winthrop's

presence. But it was very grave musing after all; for her

duty, or the image of it, she shrank from; her danger she

shrank from more unequivocally; and joy and sorrow could but

hold a mixed and miserable reign. The loss of her father could

not be to Elizabeth what the loss of his mother had been to

Winthrop. Mr. Haye had never made himself a part of his

daughter's daily inner life; to her his death could be only

the breaking of the old name and tie and associations, which

of late years had become far less dear than they used to be.

Yet to Elizabeth, who had nothing else, they were very much;

and she looked to the possible loss of them as to a wild and

dreary setting adrift upon the sea of life without harbour or

shore to make anywhere. And then rose the shadowy image of a

fair port and land of safety, which conscience whispered she

could gain if she would. But sailing was necessary for that;

and chart-studying; and watchful care of the ship, and many an

observation taken by heavenly lights; and Elizabeth had not

even begun to be a sailor. She turned these things over and

over in her mind a hundred times, one after another, like the

visions of a dream, while the hours of the day stole away

noiselessly.

The afternoon waned; the doctor came. Elizabeth sprang out to

meet him, referred him to her coadjutor up stairs, and then

waited for his coming down again. But the doctor when he came

could tell her nothing; there was no declarative symptom as

yet; he knew no more than she did; she must wait. She went

back to her sofa and her musing.

The windows were open, but with the sultry breath of August

little din of business came into the room; the place was very

quiet. The house was empty and still; seldom a footfall could

be heard overhead. Clam was busy, up stairs and down, but she

went with a light step when she pleased, and she pleased it

now. It was a relief to have the change of falling night; and

then the breeze from the sea began to come in at the windows

and freshen the hot rooms; and twilight deepened. Elizabeth

wished for a light then, but for once in her life hesitated

about ringing the bell; for she had heard Clam going up and

down and feared she might be busied for some one else. And she

thought, with a heart full, how dismal this coming on of night

would have been, but for the friend up stairs. Elizabeth

wished bitterly she could follow his advice.

She sat looking out of the open window into the duskiness, and

at the yellow lights of the street lamps which by this time

spotted it; thinking so, and feeling very miserable. By and by

Clam came in with a candle and began to let down the blinds.

"What are you going to do?" said her mistress. "You needn't

pull those down."

"Folks'll see in," said Clam.

"No they won't -- there's no light here."

"There's goin' to be, though," said Clam. "Things is goin'

straight in this house, as two folks can make 'em."

"I don't want anything -- you may let the lamps alone, Clam."

"I dursn't," said Clam, going on leisurely to light the two

large burners of the mantle lamps, -- "Mr. Winthrop told me to

get tea for you and do everything just as it was every night;

so I knowed these had to be flarin' up -- You ain't goin' to be

allowed to sit in the shades no longer."

"I don't want anything!" said Elizabeth. "Don't bring any tea

here."

"Then I'll go up and tell him his orders is contradickied,"

said Clam.

"Stop!" said her mistress when she had reached the door

walking off, -- "don't carry any foolish speech up stairs at

such a time as this; -- fetch what you like and do what you

like, -- I don't care."

The room was brilliantly lighted now; and Clam set the salver

on the table and brought in the tea-urn; and miserable as she

felt, Elizabeth half confessed to herself that her coadjutor

up stairs was right. Better this pain than the other. If the

body was nothing a gainer, the mind perhaps might be, for

keeping up the wonted habits and appearances.

"Ask Mr. Landholm to come down, Clam."

"I did ask him," said the handmaiden, "and he don't want

nothin' but biscuits, and he's got lots o' them."

"Won't he have a cup of tea?"

"He knows his own mind mostly," said Clam; "and he says he

won't."

"What arrangements can you make for his sleeping up there to-

night, Clam?"

"Him and me 'll see to it," responded Clam confidently. "I

know pretty much what's in the house; and the best of it ain't

too good for him."

So Elizabeth drank her cup of tea alone; and sat alone through

the long evening and mused. For still it was rather musing

than thinking; going over things past and things present;

things future she cared not much to meddle with. It was not a

good time, she said, for taking up her religious wants and

duties; and in part that was true, severely as she felt them;

for her mind was in such a slow fever that none of its pulses

were healthful. Fear, and foreboding, for her father and for

herself, -- hope springing along with the fear; a strong sense

that her character was different from what it ought to be, and

a strong wish that it were not, -- and a yet mightier leaning

in another direction; -- all of these, meeting and modifying

each other and struggling together, seemed to run in her veins

and to tell in each beat of the tiny timekeeper at her wrist.

How could she disentangle one from the other, or give a quiet

mind to anything, when she had it not to give?

She was just bitterly asking herself this question, when

Winthrop came in at the open parlour door; and the immediate

bitter thought which arose next was, did he ever have any _but_

a quiet mind to give to anything? The two bitters were so

strong upon her tongue that they kept it still; till he had

walked up to the neighbourhood of her sofa.

"How is my father, Mr. Landholm?" she said rising and meeting

him.

"As you mean the question I cannot answer it -- There is

nothing declarative, Miss Elizabeth. Yes," he said kindly,

meeting and answering her face, -- "you must wait yet awhile

longer."

Elizabeth sat down again, and looked down.

"Are you troubled with fears for yourself?" he said gently,

taking a chair near her.

"No --" Elizabeth said, and said truly. She could have told

him, what indeed she could not, that since his coming into the

house another feeling had overmastered that fear, and kept it

under.

"At least," she added, -- "I suppose I have it, but it doesn't

trouble me now."

"I came down on principle," said he, -- "to exchange the office

of nurse for that of physician; -- thinking it probably better

that you should see me for a few minutes, than see nobody at

all."

"I am sure you were right," said Elizabeth. "I felt awhile ago

as if my head would go crazy with too many thoughts."

"Must be unruly thoughts," said Winthrop.

"They were," said she looking up.

"Can't you manage unruly thoughts?"

"No! -- never could."

"Do you know what happens in that case? -- They manage you."

"But how can I help it, Mr. Landholm? There they are, and here

am I; -- they are strong and I am weak."

"If they are the strongest, they will rule."

Elizabeth sat silent, thinking her counsellor was very

unsatisfactory.

"Are you going to sit up all night, Miss Elizabeth?"

"No -- I suppose not --"

"I shall; so you may feel easy about being alone down here.

There could be no disturbance, I think, without my knowing it.

Let Clam be here to keep you company; and take the best rest

you can."

It was impossible for Elizabeth to say a word of thanks, or of

his kindness; the words choked her; she was mute.

"Can I do anything, Mr. Landholm?"

"Nothing in the world -- but manage your thoughts," he said

smiling.

Elizabeth was almost choked again, with the rising of tears

this time.

"But Mr. Landholm -- about that -- what is wrong cannot be

necessary; there must be some way of managing them?"

"You know it," he said simply.

But it finished Elizabeth's power of speech. She did not even

attempt to look up; she sat pressing her chin with her hand,

endeavouring to keep down her heart and to keep steady her

quivering lips. Her companion, who in the midst of all her

troubles she many times that evening thought was unlike any

other person that ever walked, presently went out into the

hall and called to Clam over the balusters.

"Is he going to give her directions about taking care of me?"

thought Elizabeth in a great maze, as Winthrop came back into

the parlour and sat down again. When Clam appeared however he

only bade her take a seat; and then bringing forth a bible

from his pocket he opened it and read the ninety-first psalm.

Hardly till then it dawned upon Elizabeth what he was thinking

to do; and then the words that he read went through and

through her heart like drawn daggers. One after another, one

after another. Little he imagined, who read, what strength her

estimate of the reader's character gave them; nor how that

same estimate made every word of his prayer tell, and go home

to her spirit with the sharpness as well as the gentleness of

Ithuriel's spear. When Elizabeth rose from her knees, it was

with a bowed head which she could in no wise lift up; and

after Winthrop had left the room, Clam stood looking at her

mistress and thinking her own thoughts, as long as she pleased

unrebuked.

"One feels sort o' good after that, now, don't they?" was her

opening remark, when Elizabeth's head was at last raised from

her hands. "Do you think the roof of any house would ever fall

in over _his_ head? He's better'n a regiment o' soldiers."

"Is everything attended to down stairs, Clam?"

"All's straight where the Governor is," said Clam with a

sweeping bend of her head, and going about to set the room in

order; -- "there ain't two straws laid the wrong way."

"Where he is!" repeated Elizabeth -- "He isn't in the kitchen,

I suppose, Clam."

"Whenever he's in the house, always seems to me he's all

over," said Clam. "It's about that. He's a governor, you know.

Now Miss 'Lizabeth, how am I goin' to fix you for the night?"

"No way," said Elizabeth. "I shall just sleep here, as I am.

Let the lamps burn, and shut down the blinds."

"And then will I go off to the second story and leave you?"

"No, indeed -- Fetch something that you can lay on the floor,

and stay here with me."

Which Clam presently did; nothing more than a blanket however;

and remarked as she curled herself down with her head upon her

arm,

"Ain't he a handsome man, Miss 'Lizabeth?"

"Who? --" ungraciously enough.

"Why, the Governor."

"Yes, for aught I know. Lie still and go to sleep, Clam, if

you can; and let me."

Very promptly Clam obeyed this command; but her less happy

mistress, as soon as the deep drawn breaths told her she was

alone again, sat up on her sofa to get in a change of posture

a change from pain.

How alone! -- In the parlour after midnight, with the lamps

burning as if the room were gay with company; herself, in her

morning dress, on the sofa for a night's rest, and there on

her blanket on the carpet, Clam already taking it. How it told

the story, of illness and watching and desertion and danger;

how it put life and death in near and strong contrast; and the

summer wind blew in through the blinds and pushed the blinds

themselves gently out into the room, just as Elizabeth had

seen and felt in many a bright and happy hour not so long

past. The same summer breath, and the summer so different!

Elizabeth could hardly bear it. She longed to rush up stairs

where there was somebody; but then she must not; and then the

remembrance that somebody was there quieted her again. That

thought stirred another train, the old contrast between him

and herself, the contrast between his condition and hers, now

brought more painfully than ever home. "He is ready to meet

anything," she thought, -- "nothing can come amiss to him; -- he

is as ready for that world as for this -- and more!" --

The impression of the words he had read that evening came back

to her afresh, and the recollection of the face with which he

had read them, -- calm, happy, and at rest; -- and Elizabeth

threw herself off the sofa and kneeled down to lay her head

and arms upon it, in mere agony of wish to change something,

or rather of the felt want that something should be changed. O

that she were at peace like him! O that she had like him a

sure home and possession beyond the reach of sickness and

death! O that she were that rectified, self-contained, pure,

strong spirit, that he was! -- The utmost of passionate wish

was in the tears that wept out these yearnings of heart --

petitions they half were, -- for her mind in giving them form,

had a half look to the only possible power that could give

them fruition. But it was with only the refreshment of tears

and exhaustion that she laid herself on her couch and went to

sleep.

Clam had carried away her blanket bed and put out the lamps,

before Elizabeth awoke the next morning. It was a question

whether the room looked drearier by night or by day. She got

up and went to the window. Clam had pulled up the blinds. The

light of the summer morning was rising again, but it shone

only without; all was darkness inside. Except that light-

surrounded watcher up stairs. How Elizabeth's heart blessed

him.

The next thing was, to get ready to receive his report. That

morning's toilet was soon made, and Elizabeth sat waiting. He

might come soon, or he might not; for it was early, and he

might not know whether she was awake and risen yet. She was

unaccustomed, poor child, to a waiting of pain; and her heart

felt tired and sore already from the last forty-eight hours of

fears and hopes. Fears and hopes were in strong life now, but

a life that had become very tender to every touch. Clam was

setting the breakfast-table -- Could breakfast be eaten or not?

The very cups and saucers made Elizabeth's heart ache. She was

glad when Clam had done her work and was gone and she sat

waiting alone. But the breaths came painfully now, and her

heart was weary with its own aching.

The little knock at the door came at last. Elizabeth ran to

open it, and exchanged a silent grasp of the hand with the

newsbearer; her eyes looked her question. He came in just as

he came last night; calm and grave.

"I can tell you nothing new, Miss Elizabeth," he said. "I

cannot see that Mr. Haye is any better -- I do not know that he

is any worse."

But Elizabeth was weak to bear longer suspense; she burst into

tears and sat down hiding her face. Her companion stood near,

but said nothing further.

"May I call Clam?" he asked after a few minutes.

Elizabeth gave eager assent; and the act of last night was

repeated, to her unspeakable gratification. She drank in every

word, and not only because she drank in the voice with them.

"Breakfast's just ready, Mr. Winthrop," said Clam when she was

leaving the room; -- "so you needn't go up stairs."

The breakfast was a very silent one on Elizabeth's part.

Winthrop talked on indifferent subjects; but she was too full-

hearted and too sick-hearted to answer him with many words.

And when the short meal was ended and he was about quitting

the parlour she jumped up and followed him a step or two.

"Mr. Winthrop -- won't you say a word of comfort to me before

you go? --"

He saw she needed it exceedingly; and came back and sat down

on the sofa with her.

"I don't know what to say to you better than this, Miss

Elizabeth," he said, turning over again the leaves of his

little bible; -- "I came to it in the course of my reading this

morning; and it comforted me."

He put the book in her hands, but Elizabeth had to clear her

eyes more than once from hot tears, before she could read the

words to which he directed her.

"And there shall be a tabernacle for a shadow in the daytime

from the heat, and for a place of refuge, and for a covert

from storm and from rain."

Elizabeth looked at it.

"But I don't understand it, Mr. Landholm?" she said, raising

her eyes to his face.

He said nothing; he took the book from her and turning a few

leaves over, put it again in her hands. Elizabeth read; --

"And a man shall be as an hiding-place from the wind, and a

covert from the tempest; as rivers of water in a dry place; as

the shadow of a great rock in a thirsty land."

"Is that plainer?" he asked.

"It means the Saviour?" said Elizabeth.

"Certainly it does! To whom else should we go?"

"But Mr. Landholm," said Elizabeth after a minute's struggle,

"why do you shew me this, when you know I can do nothing with

it?"

"_Will_ you do nothing?" he said.

The words implied that she could; an implication she would not

deny; but her answer was another burst of tears. And with the

book in her hand he left her.

The words were well studied that day! by a heart feeling the

blast of the tempest and bitterly wanting to hide itself from

the wind. But the fact of her want and of a sure remedy, was

all she made clear; how to match the one with the other she

did not know. The book itself she turned over with the

curiosity and the interest of fresh insight into character. It

was well worn, and had been carefully handled; it lay open

easily anywhere, and in many places various marks of

pencilling shewed that not only the eyes but the mind of its

owner had been all over it. It was almost an awful book to

Elizabeth's handling. It seemed a thing too good to be in her

hold. It bore witness to its owner's truth of character, and

to her own consequent being far astray; it gave her an opening

such as she never had before to look into his mind and life

and guess at the secret spring and strength of them. Of many

of the marks of his pencil she could make nothing at all; she

could not divine why they had been made, nor what could

possibly be the notable thing in the passage pointed out; and

longing to get at more of his mind than she could in one

morning's hurried work, she found another bible in the house

and took off a number of his notes, for future and more

leisurely study.

It was a happy occupation for her that day. No other could

have so softened its exceeding weariness and sadness. The

doctor gave her no comfort. He said he could tell nothing _yet;_

and Elizabeth could not fancy that this delay of amendment

gave any encouragement to hope for it. She did not see

Winthrop at dinner. She spent the most of the day over his

bible. Sickness of heart sometimes made her throw it aside,

but so surely sickness of heart made her take it up again.

The thought of Winthrop himself getting sick, did once or

twice look in through the window of Elizabeth's mind; but her

mind could not take it in. She had so much already to bear,

that this tremendous possibility she could not bear so much as

to look at; she left it a one side; and it can hardly be

numbered among her recognized causes of trouble.

The day wore to an end. The evening and the sea-breeze came

again. The lamps were lit and the table dressed with the

salver and tea-urn. And Elizabeth was thankful the day was

over; and waited impatiently for her friend to make his

appearance.

She thought he looked thoughtfuller than ever when he came.

That might have been fancy.

"I don't know, Miss Elizabeth," he said, taking her hand as he

had done in the morning, and answering her face. "We must wait

yet. -- How have you borne the day?"

"I have borne it by the help of your book," she said looking

down at it and trembling.

"You could have no better help," he said with a little sigh,

as he turned away to the table, -- "except that of the Author

of it."

The tea was very silent, for even Winthrop did not talk much;

and very sad, for Elizabeth could hardly hold her head up.

"Mr. Winthrop," she said when he rose, -- "can you give me a

minute or two before you go? -- I want to ask you a question."

"Certainly," -- he said; and waited, both standing, while she

opened his bible and found the place he had shewed her in the

morning. She shewed it to him now.

"This -- I don't quite understand it. -- I see what is spoken

of, and the need of it, -- but -- how can I make it my own?"

She looked up as she put the question, with most earnest eyes,

and lips that only extreme determination kept from giving way.

He looked at her, and at his book.

"By giving your trust to the Maker of the promise."

"How? --"

"The same unquestioning faith and dependence that you would

give to any sure and undoubted refuge of human strength."

Elizabeth looked down and pressed her hands close together

upon her breast. She knew so well how to give that! -- so

little how to give the other.

"Do you understand what Christ requires of those who would

follow him?"

"No," she said looking up again, -- "not clearly -- hardly at

all."

"One is -- that you give up everything, even in thought, that

is contrary to his authority."

He was still, and so was she, both looking at each other.

"That is what is meant by repentance. The other thing is, --

that you trust yourself for all your wants -- from the

forgiveness of sin, to the supply of this moment's need, -- to

the strength and love of Jesus Christ; -- and that because he

has paid your price and bought you with his own blood."

"You mean," said Elizabeth slowly, "that his life was given in

place of mine."

Winthrop was silent. Elizabeth stood apparently considering.

"'Everything that is contrary to his authority'" -- she added

after a minute, -- "how can I know exactly all that?"

He still said nothing, but touched with his finger once or

twice the book in his hand.

Elizabeth looked, and the tears came to her eyes.

"You know, --" she said, hesitating a little, -- "what

physicians say of involuntary muscular resistance, that the

physical frame makes sometimes?"

He answered her with an instant's light of intelligence, and

then with the darkened look of sorrow. But he took his bible

away with him and said no more.

Elizabeth sat down and struggled with herself and with the

different passions which had been at work in her mind, till

she was wearied out; and then she slept.

She waked up in the middle of the night, to find the lamps

burning bright and Clam asleep on the floor by her side; she

herself was sitting yet where she had been sitting in the

evening, on a low seat with her head on the sofa cushion. She

got up and with a sort of new spring of hope and cheer, whence

come she knew not, laid herself on the sofa and slept till the

morning.

"You'd best be up, Miss 'Lizabeth," were Clam's first words.

"Why?" said Elizabeth springing up.

"It's time," said her handmaiden.

Elizabeth rose from her sofa and put her face and dress in

such order as a few minutes could do. She had but come back

from doing this, and was standing before the table, when

Winthrop came in. It was much earlier than usual. Elizabeth

looked, but he did not answer, the wonted question. He led her

gently to the window and placed himself opposite to her.

"You must leave here, Miss Elizabeth," he said.

"Must I?" -- said Elizabeth looking up at him and trembling.

"You must --" he answered very gently.

"Why, Mr. Landholm?" Elizabeth dared to say.

"Because there is no longer any reason why you should stay

here."

She trembled exceedingly, but though her very lips trembled,

she did not cry. He would have placed her on a chair, but she

resisted that and stood still.

"Where do you want me to go, Mr. Winthrop?" she said

presently, like a child.

"I will take you wherever you say -- to some friend's house?"

She caught at his arm and her breath at once, with a kind of

sob; then releasing his arm, she said,

"There isn't anywhere."

"No house in the city?"

She shook her head.

"If you will let me, I will take you to a safe and quiet

place; and as soon as possible away from the city."

"When?"

"When from here? -- Now, -- as soon as you can be ready."

Elizabeth's eye wandered vaguely towards the table like a

person in a maze.

"Mayn't I go up stairs again?" she said, her eye coming back

to his.

"I would rather you did not."

She gave way then and sat down covering her face with her

hands. And sobs as violent as her tremblings had been, held

her for a little while. The moment she could, she rose up and

looked up again, throwing off her tears as it were, though a

sob now and then even while she was speaking interrupted her

breath.

"But Mr. Winthrop -- the house, --how can I go and leave it with

everything in it?"

"I will take care, if you will trust me."

"I will trust you," she said with running tears. "But you? --"

"I will take care of it and you too. -- I will try to."

"That was not what I meant --"

"I am safe," he said.

He gently seated her; and then going off to Clam at the other

side of the room he bade her fetch her mistress's bonnet and

shawl. He himself put them on, and taking her arm in his, they

went forth of the house.

CHAPTER IX.

The One remains, the many change and pass;

Heaven's light forever shines, Earth's shadows flee;

Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass

Stains the clear radiance of Eternity,

Until Death shiver it to atoms.

SHELLEY.

The dawn of the summer morning was just flushing up over the

city, when Winthrop and his trembling companion came out of

the house. The flush came up upon a fair blue sky, into which

little curls of smoke were here and there stealing; and a

fresh air in the streets as yet held place of the sun's hot

breath. One person felt the refreshment of it, as he descended

the steps of the house and began a rather swift walk up the

Parade. But those were very trembling feet that he had to

guide during that early walk; though his charge was perfectly

quiet. She did not weep at all; she did not speak, nor

question any of his movements. Neither did he speak. He kept a

steady and swift course till they reached Mr. Inchbald's house

in Little South Street, and then only paused to open the door.

He led Elizabeth up-stairs to his own room, and there and not

before took her hand from his arm and placed her on a chair.

Himself quietly went round the room, opening the windows and

altering the disposition of one or two things. Then he came

back to her where she sat like a statue, and in kind fashion

again took one of her hands.

"I will see that you are waited upon," he said gently; "and I

will send Clam to you by and by for your orders. Will you stay

here for a little while? -- and then I will take care of you."

How she wished his words meant more than she knew they did.

She bowed her head, thinking so.

"Can I give you anything?"

She managed to say a smothered 'no,' and he went; first

pulling out of his pocket his little bible which he laid upon

the table.

Was that by way of answering his own question? It might be, or

he might not have wanted it in his pocket. Whether or no,

Elizabeth seized it and drew it towards her, and as if it had

contained the secret charm and panacea for all her troubles,

she laid her hands and her head upon it, and poured out there

her new and her old sorrows; wishing even then that Winthrop

could have given her the foundation of strength on which his

own strong spirit rested.

After a long while, or what seemed such, she heard the door

softly open and some one come in. The slow careful step was

none that she knew, and Elizabeth did not look up till it had

gone out and the door had closed again. It was Mrs. Nettley,

and Mrs. Nettley had softly left on the table a waiter of

breakfast. Elizabeth looked at it, and laid her head down

again.

The next interruption came an hour later and was a smarter

one. Elizabeth had wearied herself with weeping, and lay

comparatively quiet on the couch.

"Miss 'Lizabeth," said the new-comer, in more gentle wise than

it was her fashion to look or speak, -- "Mr. Winthrop said I

was to come and get your orders about what you wanted."

"I can't give orders -- Do what you like," said Elizabeth

keeping her face hid.

"If I knowed what 'twas," -- said Clam, sending her eye round

the room for information or suggestion. "Mr. Winthrop said I

was to come. -- Why you haven't took no breakfast?"

"I didn't want any."

"You can't go out o' town that way," said Clam. "The Governor

desired you would take some breakfast, and his orders must be

follered. You can't drink cold coffee neither --"

And away went Clam, coffee-pot in hand.

In so short a space of time that it shewed Clam's business

faculties, she was back again with the coffee smoking hot. She

made a cup carefully and brought it to her mistress.

"You can't do nothin' without it," said Clam. "Mr. Winthrop

would say, 'Drink it' if he was here --"

Which Elizabeth knew, and perhaps considered in swallowing the

coffee. Before she had done, Clam stood at her couch again

with a plate of more substantial supports.

"He would say 'Eat,' if he was here --" she remarked.

"Attend a little to what _I_ have to say," said her mistress.

"While you're eatin'," said Clam. "I wasn't to stop to get

breakfast."

A few words of directions were despatched, and Clam was off

again; and Elizabeth lay still and looked at the strange room

and thought over the strange meaning and significance of her

being there. A moment's harbour, with a moment's friend. She

was shiveringly alone in the world; she felt very much at a

loss what to do, or what would become of her, She felt it, but

she could not think about it. Tears came again for a long

uninterrupted time.

The day had reached the afternoon, when Clam returned, and

coming into Mrs. Nettley's kitchen inquired if her mistress

had had any refreshment. Mrs. Nettley declared that she

dursn't take it up and that she had waited for Clam. Upon

which that damsel set about getting ready a cup of tea, with a

sort of impatient promptitude.

"Have you got all through?" Mrs. Nettley asked in the course

of this preparation.

"What?" said Clam.

"Your work."

"No," said Clam. "Never expect to. My work don't get done."

"But has Mr. Landholm got through his work, down at the

house?"

"Don't know," said Clam. "He don't tell _me_. But if we was to

work on, at the rate we've been a goin' to-day -- we'd do up

all Mannahatta in a week or so."

"What's been so much to do? -- the funeral, I know."

"The funeral," said Clam, "and everything else. That was only

one thing. There was everything to be locked up, and

everything to be put up, and the rest to be packed; and the

silver sent off to the Bank; and everybody to be seen to. I

did all I could, and Mr. Winthrop he did the rest."

"He'll be worn out!" said Mrs. Nettley.

"No he won't," said Clam. "He ain't one o' them that have to

try hard to make things go -- works like oiled 'chinery --

powerful too, I can tell you."

"What's going to be done?" said Mrs. Nettley meditatively.

"Can't say," said Clam. "I wish my wishes was goin' to be done

-- but I s'pose they ain't. People's ain't mostly, in this

world." She went off with her dish of tea and what not, to her

mistress up-stairs. But Elizabeth this time would endure

neither her presence nor her proposal. Clam was obliged to go

down again leaving her mistress as she had found her. Alone

with herself.

Then, when the sun was long past the meridian, Elizabeth heard

upon the stair another step, of the only friend, as it seemed

to her, that she had. She raised her head and listened to it.

The step went past her door, and into the other room, and she

sat waiting. "How little he knows," she thought, "how much of

a friend he is! how little he guesses it. How far he is from

thinking that when he shall have bid me good bye -- somewhere --

he will have taken away all of help and comfort I have. --"

But clear and well defined as this thought was in her mind at

the moment, it did not prevent her meeting her benefactor with

as much outward calmness as if it had not been there. Yet the

quiet meeting of hands had much that was hard to bear.

Elizabeth did not dare let her thoughts take hold of it.

"Have you had what you wanted?" he said, in the way in which

one asks a question of no moment when important ones are

behind.

"I have had all I could have," Elizabeth answered.

There was a pause; and then he asked,

"What are your plans, Miss Elizabeth?"

"I haven't formed any. -- I couldn't not, yet."

"Do you wish to stay in the city, or to go out of it?"

"Oh to go out of it!" said Elizabeth, -- "if I could -- if I

knew where."

"Where is your cousin?"

"She was at Vantassel; but she left it for some friend's house

in the country, I believe. I don't want to be where she is."

Elizabeth's tears came again.

"It seems very strange --" she said presently, trying to put a

stop to them, but her words stopped.

"What?" said Winthrop.

"It seems very strange, -- but I hardly know where to go. I

have no friends near -- no near friends, in any sense; there

are some, hundreds of miles off, in distance, and further than

that in kind regard. I know plenty of people, but I have no

friends. -- I would go up to Wut-a-qut-o, if there was anybody

there," she added after a minute or two.

"Shahweetah has passed into other hands," said Winthrop.

"I know it," said Elizabeth; -- "it passed into mine."

Winthrop started a little, and then after another moment's

pause said quietly,

"Are you serious in wishing to go there now?"

"Very serious!" said Elizabeth, "if I had anybody to take care

of me. I couldn't be there with only Clam and Karen."

"You would find things very rough and uncomfortable."

"What do you suppose I care about how rough?" said Elizabeth.

"I would rather be there than in any other place I can think

of."

"I am afraid you would still be much alone there -- your own

household would be all."

"I must be that anywhere," said Elizabeth bitterly. "I wish I

could be there."

"Then I will see what I can do," said he rising.

"About what?" said Elizabeth.

"I will tell you if I succeed."

Mr. Landholm walked down stairs into Mrs. Nettley's sanctum,

where the good lady was diligently at work in kitchen affairs.

"Mrs. Nettley, will you leave your brother and me to keep

things together here, and go into the country with this

bereaved friend of mine?"

Mrs. Nettley stood still with her hands in the dough of her

bread and looked at the maker of this extraordinary

proposition.

"Into the country, Mr. Landholm! -- When?"

"Perhaps this afternoon -- in two or three hours."

"Dear Mr. Landholm! --"

"Dear Mrs. Nettley."

"But it's impossible."

"Is it?"

"Why -- What does she want me for, Mr. Landholm?"

"She is alone, and without friends at hand. She wishes to

leave the city and take refuge in her own house in the

country, but it is uninhabited except by servants. She does

not know of my application to you, which I make believing it

to be a case of charity."

Mrs. Nettley began to knead her dough with a haste and vigour

which told of other matters on hand.

"Will _you_ go, Mr. Landholm?"

"Certainly -- to see you safe there -- and then I will come back

and take care of Mr. Inchbald."

"How far is it, sir?"

"So far as my old home, which Miss Haye has bought."

"What, Wut -- that place of yours?" said Mrs. Nettley.

"Yes," Winthrop said gravely.

"And how long shall I be wanted, Mr. Landholm?"

"I do not know, Mrs. Nettley."

Mrs. Nettley hastily cut her dough into loaves and threw it

into the pans.

"You are going, Mrs. Nettley?"

"Why sir -- in two hours, you say?"

"Perhaps in so little as that -- I am going to see."

"But Mr. Landholm," said the good lady, facing round upon him

after bestowing her pans in their place, and looking somewhat

concerned, -- "Mr. Landholm, do you think she will like me? --

Miss Haye?"

Winthrop smiled a little.

"I think she will be very thankful to you, Mrs. Nettley -- I

can answer no further."

"I suppose it's right to risk that," Mrs. Nettley concluded.

"I'll do what you say, Mr. Landholm."

Without more words Mr. Landholm went out and left the house.

"Are Miss Haye's things all ready?" asked Mrs. Nettley of

Clam, while she nervously untied her apron.

"All's ready that _he_ has to do with," Clam answered a little

curtly.

"But has he to do with your mistress's things?"

"He has to do with everything, just now," said Clam. "I wish

the now'd last for ever!"

"How can we go to-night? -- the boats and the stages and all

don't set off so late."

"Boats don't stop near Wutsey Qutsey," said Clam.

Mrs. Nettley went off to make her own preparations.

When Mr. Landholm came again, after an interval of some

length, he came with a carriage.

"Are you ready, Mrs. Nettley?" he said looking into that

lady's quarters.

"In a little bit, Mr. Landholm! --"

Whereupon he went up-stairs.

"If you wish to go to Wut-a-qut-o, Miss Elizabeth," he said,

"my friend Mrs. Nettley will go with you and stay with you,

till you have made other arrangements. I can answer for her

kindness of heart, and unobtrusive manners, and good sense.

Would you like her for a companion?"

"I would like anybody -- that you can recommend."

"My friend Cowslip's little sloop sets sail for the

neighbourhood of Wut-a-qut-o this evening."

"Oh thank you! --Will she take us?"

"If you wish it."

"Oh thank you! --"

"Would you not be better to wait till to-morrow? -- I can make

the sloop wait."

"Oh no, let us go," said Elizabeth rising. "But your friend is

very good -- your friend who is going with me, I mean."

"Mrs. Nettley. But you need not move yet -- rest while you

can."

"Rest!" -- said Elizabeth. And tears said what words did not.

"There is only one rest," said Winthrop gravely; "and it is in

Christ's hand. 'Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy

laden, AND I WILL GIVE YOU REST.'" --

Elizabeth's sobs were bitter. Her counsellor added no more

however; he left the room after a little while, and soon

returned to tell her that all was ready. She was ready too by

that time.

"But Mr. Winthrop," she said looking at him earnestly, "is

everything here so that you can leave it?"

She dared not put the whole of her meaning into words. But

Winthrop understood, and answered a quiet "yes;" and Elizabeth

lowered her veil and her head together and let him lead her to

the carriage.

A few minutes brought them to the pier at the end of which the

Julia Ann lay.

"You're sharp upon the time, Mr. Landholm," said her master; --

"we're just goin' to cast off. But we shouldn't have done it,

nother, till you come. All right!"

"Is all right in the cabin?" said Winthrop as they came on

board.

"Well, it's slicked up all it could be on such short notice,"

said the skipper. "I guess you wont have to live in it long;

the wind's coming up pretty smart ahind us. Haul away there! -- "

It was past six o'clock, and the August sun had much lessened

of its heat, when, as once before with Mr. Landholm for a

passenger, the Julia Ann stood out into the middle of the

river with her head set for the North.

Mrs. Nettley and Clam hid themselves straightway in the

precincts of the cabin. Elizabeth stood still where she had

first placed herself on the deck, in a cold abstracted sort of

carelessness, conscious only that her protector was standing

by her side, and that she was not willing to lose sight of

him. The vessel, and her crew, and their work before her very

eyes, she could hardly be said to see. The sloop got clear of

the wharf and edged out into the mid-channel, where she stood

bravely along before the fair wind. Slowly the trees and

houses along shore were dropped behind, and fresher the wind

and fairer the green river-side seemed to become. Elizabeth's

senses hardly knew it, or only in a kind of underhand way; not

recognized.

"Will you go into the cabin? or will you have a seat here?"

she heard Winthrop say.

Mechanically she looked about for one. He brought a chair and

placed her in it, and she sat down; choosing rather the open

air and free sky than any shut-up place, and his neighbourhood

rather than where he was not; but with a dulled and impassive

state of feeling that refused to take up anything, past,

present or future. It was not rest, it was not relief, though

there was a seeming of rest about it. She knew then it would

not last. It was only a little lull between storms; the

enforced quiet of wearied and worn-out powers. She sat mazily

taking in the sunlight, and the view of the sunlighted earth

and water, the breath of the sweeping fresh air, the creaking

of the sloop's cordage, in the one consciousness that Winthrop

kept his place at her side all this time. How she thanked him

for that! though she could not ask him to sit down, nor make

any sort of a speech about it.

Down went the sun, and the shadows and the sunlight were swept

away together; and yet fresher came the sweet wind. It was a

sort of consolation to Elizabeth, that her distress gave

Winthrop a right and a reason to attend upon her; she had had

all along a vague feeling of it, and the feeling was very

present now. It was all of comfort she could lay hold of; and

she clutched at it with even then a foreboding sense of the

desolation there would be when that comfort was gone. She had

it now; she had it, and she held it; and she sat there in her

chair on the deck in a curious half stupor, half quiet, her

mind clinging to that one single point where it could lean.

There came a break-up however. Supper was declared to be

ready; and though nobody but Winthrop attended the skipper's

table, Elizabeth was obliged to take some refreshments of her

own, along with a cup of the sloop's tea, which most certainly

she would have taken from no hand but the one that presented

it to her. And after it, Elizabeth was so strongly advised to

go to the cabin and take some rest, that she could not help

going; resting, she had no thought of. Her companions were of

easier mind; for they soon addressed themselves to such

sleeping conveniencies as the little cabin could boast. Miss

Haye watched them begin and end their preparations and bestow

themselves in resting positions to sleep; and then drawing a

breath of comparative rest herself, she placed herself just

within the cabin threshold, on the floor, where she could look

out and have a good view of the deck through the partly open

door.

It was this night as on the former occasion, a brilliant

moonlight; and the vessel had no lamps up to hinder its power.

The mast and sails and lines stood out in sharp light and

shadow. The man at the helm Elizabeth could not see; the

moonlight poured down upon Winthrop, walking slowly back and

forth on the deck, his face and figure at every turn given

fully and clearly to view. Elizabeth herself was in shadow; he

could not look within the cabin door and see her; she could

look out and see him right well, and she did. He was pacing

slowly up and down, with a thoughtful face, but so calm in its

thoughtfulness that it was a grievous contrast to Elizabeth's

own troubled and tossed nature. It was all the more

fascinating to her gaze; while it was bitter to her

admiration. The firm quiet tread, -- the manly grave repose of

the face, -- spoke of somewhat in the character and life so

unlike what she knew in her own, and so beautiful to her sense

of just and right, that she looked in a maze of admiration and

self-condemning; rating herself lower and lower and Winthrop

higher and higher, at every fair view the moonlight gave, at

every turn that brought him near or took him further from her.

And tears -- curious tears -- that came from some very deep

wells of her nature, blinded her eyes, and rolled hot down her

cheeks, and were wiped away that she might look. "What shall I

do when he gets tired of that walk and goes somewhere else?" --

she thought; and with the thought, as instantly, Elizabeth

gathered herself up from off the floor, wiped her cheeks from

the tears, and stepped out into the moonlight. "I can't say

anything, but I suppose he will," was her meditation. "Nobody

knows when I shall have another chance." --

"They could not make it comfortable for you in there?" said

Winthrop coming up to her.

"I don't know -- yes, -- I have not tried."

"Are you very much fatigued?"

"I suppose so. -- I don't feel it."

"Can I do anything for you?"

The real answer nearly burst Elizabeth's bounds of self-

control, but nevertheless her words were quietly given.

"Yes, -- if you will only let me stay out here a little while."

He put a chair for her instantly, and himself remained

standing near, as he had done before.

"Walk on, if you wish," said Elizabeth. "Don't mind me."

But instead of that he drew up another chair, and sat down.

There was silence then that might be felt. The moonlight

poured down noiselessly on the water, and over the low dusky

distant shore; the ripples murmured under the sloop's prow;

the wind breathed gently through the sails. Now and then the

creak of the rudder sounded, but the very stars were not more

calmly peaceful than everything else.

"There is quiet and soothing in the speech of such a scene as

this," Winthrop said after a time.

"Quiet!" said Elizabeth. Her voice choked, and it was a little

while before she could go on. -- "Nothing is quiet to a mind in

utter confusion."

"Is yours so?"

"Yes."

The sobs were at her very lips, but the word got out first.

"It is no wonder," he observed gently.

"Yes it is wonder," said Elizabeth; -- "or at least it is what

needn't be. Yours wouldn't be so in any circumstances."

"What makes the confusion?" -- he asked, in a gentle

considerate tone that did not press for an answer.

"The want of a single fixed thing that my thoughts can cling

to."

He was silent a good while after that.

"There is nothing fixed in this world," he said at length.

"Yes there is," said Elizabeth bitterly. "There are friends --

and there is a self-reliant spirit -- and there is a settled

mind."

"Settled -- about what?"

"What it will and what it ought to do."

"Is yours not settled on the latter point?" he asked.

"If it were," said Elizabeth with a little hesitation and

struggling, -- "that don't make it settled."

"It shews where the settling point is."

"Which leaves it as far as ever from being settled," said

Elizabeth, almost impatiently.

"A self-reliant spirit, if it be not poised on another

foundation than its own, hath no fixedness that is worth

anything, Miss Elizabeth; -- and friends are not safe things to

trust to."

"Some of them are," said Elizabeth.

"No, for they are not sure. There is but one friend that

cannot be taken away from us."

"But to know that, and to know everything else about him, does

not make him our friend," said Elizabeth in a voice that

trembled.

"To agree to everything about him, does."

"To agree? -- How? -- I do agree to it," said Elizabeth.

"Do you? Are you willing to have him for a King to reign over

you? -- as well as a Saviour to make you and keep you safe?"

She did not answer.

"You do not know everything about him, neither."

"What don't I know?"

"Almost all. You cannot, till you begin to obey him; for till

then he will not shew himself to you. The epitome of all

beauty is in those two words -- Jesus Christ."

She made no answer yet, with her head bowed, and striving to

check the straining sobs with which her breast was heaving.

She had a feeling that he was looking on compassionately; but

it was a good while before she could restrain herself into

calmness; and during that time he added nothing more. When she

could look up, she found he was not looking at her; his eyes

were turned upon the river, where the moon made a broad and

broadening streak of wavy brightness. But Elizabeth looked at

the quiet of his brow, and it smote her; though there was now

somewhat of thoughtful care upon the face. The tears that she

thought she had driven back, rushed fresh to her eyes again.

"Do you believe what I last said, Miss Elizabeth?" he said

turning round to her.

"About the epitome of all beauty?"

"Yes. Do you believe it?"

"You say so -- I don't understand it," she said sadly and

somewhat perplexed.

"I told you so," he answered, looking round to the moonlight

again.

"But Mr. Landholm," said Elizabeth in evident distress, "won't

you tell me something more?"

"I cannot."

"Oh yes you can, -- a great deal more," she said weeping.

"I could," he said gravely, -- "yet I should tell you nothing --

you would not understand me. You must, find it out for

yourself."

"How in the world can I?"

"There is a promise, -- 'If any man will do his will, he shall

know of the doctrine.'"

"I don't know how to begin, nor anything about it," said

Elizabeth, weeping still.

"Begin anywhere."

"How? What do you mean?"

"Open the Bible at the first chapter of Matthew, and read. Ask

honestly, of your own conscience and of God, at each step,

what obligation upon you grows out of what you are reading. If

you follow his leading he will lead you on, -- to himself."

Elizabeth sobbed in silence for some little time; then she

said,

"I will do it, Mr. Landholm."

"If you do," said he, "you will find you can do nothing."

"Nothing!" said Elizabeth.

"You will find you are dependent upon the good pleasure of God

for power to take the smallest step."

"His good pleasure! -- Suppose it should not be given me."

"There is no 'suppose' about that," Winthrop answered, with a

slight smile, which seen as it was through a veil of tears,

Elizabeth never forgot, and to which she often looked back in

after time; -- "'Whosoever _will_, let him take the water of

life freely.' But he does not always get a draught at the

first asking. The water of life was not bought so cheap as

that. However, 'to him that knocketh, it shall be opened.'"

Elizabeth hearkened to him, with a curious mixture of yielding

and rebellion at once in her mind. She felt them both there.

But the rebellion was against the words; her yielding was for

the voice that brought the words to her ear. She paused

awhile.

"At that rate, people might be discouraged before they got

what they wanted," she observed, when the silence had lasted

some little time.

"They might," said Winthrop quietly.

"I should think many might."

"Many have been," he answered.

"What then?" she asked a little abruptly.

"They _did not get what they wanted_."

Elizabeth started a little, and shivered, and tears began to

come again.

"What's to hinder their being discouraged, Mr. Landholm?" she

asked in a tone that was a little querulous.

"Believing God's word."

So sweet the words came, her tears ceased at that; the power

of the truth sank for a moment with calming effect upon her

rebellious feeling; but with this came also as truly the

thought, "You have a marvellous beautiful way of saying things

quietly!" -- However for the time her objections were silenced;

and she sat still, looking out upon the water, and thinking

that with the first quiet opportunity she would begin the

first chapter of Matthew.

For a little while they both were motionless and silent; and

then rising, Winthrop began his walk up and down the deck

again. Elizabeth was left to her meditations; which sometimes

roved hither and thither, and sometimes concentred themselves

upon the beat of his feet, which indeed formed a sort of

background of cadence to them all. It was such a soothing

reminder of one strong and sure stay that she might for the

present lean upon; and the knowledge that she might soon lose

it, made the reminder only the more precious. She was weeping

most bitter tears during some of that time; but those

footsteps behind her were like quiet music through all. She

listened to them sometimes, and felt them always, with a

secret gratification of knowing they would not quit the deck

till she did. Then she had some qualms about his getting

tired; and then she said to herself that she could not put a

stop to what was so much to her and which she was not to have

again. So she sat and listened to them, weary and half

bewildered with the changes and pain of the last few days and

hours; hardly recognizing the reality of her own situation, or

that the sloop, Winthrop's walk behind her, the moonlight, her

lonely seat on the deck, and her truly lonely place in the

world, were not all parts of a curious phantasm. Or if

realizing them, with senses so tried and blunted with recent

wear and tear, that they refused to act and left her to

realize it quietly and almost it seemed stupidly. She called

it so to herself, but she could not help it; and she was in a

manner thankful for that. She would wake up again. She would

have liked to sit there all night under that moonlight and

with the regular fall of Winthrop's step to and fro on the

vessel.

"How long can you stand this?" said he, pausing beside her.

"What?" said Elizabeth looking up.

"How long can you do without resting?"

"I am resting. -- I couldn't rest so well anywhere else."

"Couldn't you?"

"No! --" she said earnestly.

He turned away and went on walking. Elizabeth blessed him for

it.

The moon shone, and the wind blew, and steadily the vessel

sailed on; till higher grounds began to rise on either side of

her, and hills stood back of hills, ambitious of each other's

standing, and threw their deep shadows all along the margin of

the river. As the sloop entered between these narrowing and

lifting walls of the river channel, the draught of air became

gentler, often hindered by some outstanding high point she had

left behind; more slowly she made her way past hill and hill-

embayed curves of the river, less stoutly her sails were

filled, more gently her prow rippled over the smoother water.

Sometimes she passed within the shadow of a lofty hill-side;

and then slipped out again into the clear fair sparkling water

where the moon shone.

"Are we near there?" said Elizabeth suddenly, turning her head

to arrest her walking companion. He came to the back of the

chair.

"Near Wut-a-qut-o?"

"Yes."

"No. Nearing it, but not near it yet."

"How soon shall we be?"

"If the wind holds, I should think in two hours."

"Where do we stop?"

"At the sloop's quarters -- the old mill --about two miles down

the river from Shahweetah."

"Why wouldn't she carry us straight up to the place?"

"It would be inconvenient landing there, and would very much

delay the sloop's getting to her moorings."

"I'll pay for that! --"

"We can get home as well in another way."

"But then we shall have to stay here all night."

"Here, on the sloop, you mean? The night is far gone already."

"Not half!" said Elizabeth. "It's only a little past twelve."

"Aren't you tired?"

"I suppose so, but I don't feel it."

"Don't you want to take some sleep before morning?"

"No, I can't. But you needn't walk there to take care of me,

Mr. Winthrop. I shall be quite safe alone."

"No, you will not," he said; and going to some of the sloop's

receptacles, he drew out an old sail and laying it on the deck

by her side he placed himself upon it, in a half sitting, half

reclining posture, which told of some need of rest on his

part.

"_You_ are tired," she said earnestly. "Please don't stay here

for me!"

"It pleases me to stay," he said lightly. "It is no hardship,

under ordinary circumstances, to pass such a night as this out

of doors."

"What is it in these circumstances?" said Elizabeth quickly.

"Not a hardship."

"You don't say much more than you are obliged to," thought

Elizabeth bitterly. "It is 'not a hardship' to stay there to

take care of me; -- and there is not in the world another

person left to me who could say even as much." --

"There is a silent peace-speaking in such a scene as this,"

presently said Winthrop, lying on his sail and looking at the

river.

"I dare say there is," Elizabeth answered sadly.

"You cannot feel it, perhaps?"

"Not a particle. I can just see that it might be."

"The Bible makes such constant use of natural imagery, that to

one familiar with it, the objects of nature bring back as

constantly its teachings -- its warnings -- its consolations."

"What now?" said Elizabeth.

"Many things. Look at those deep and overlapping shadows. 'As

the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so the Lord is round

about his people, from henceforth'" --

"Stop, Mr. Winthrop!" Elizabeth exclaimed; -- "Stop! I can't

bear it."

"Why?"

"I can't bear it," she repeated, in a passion of tears.

"Why?" said he again in the same tone, when a minute had gone

by.

"Those words don't belong to me -- I've nothing to do with

them," she said, raising her head and dashing her tears right

and left.

But Winthrop made no sort of answer to that, and a dead

silence fell between the parties. Again the prow of the sloop

was heard rippling against the waves; and slowly she glided

past mountain and shadow, and other hills rose and other deep

shadows lay before them. Elizabeth, between other thoughts,

was tempted to think that her companion was as impassive and

cold as the moonlight, and as moveless as the dark mountain

lines that stood against the sky. And yet she knew and trusted

him better than that. It was but the working of passing

impatience and bitter feeling; it was only the chafing of

passion against what seemed so self-contained and so calm. And

yet that very self-continence and calmness was what passion

liked, and what passion involuntarily bent down before.

She had not got over yet the stunned effect of the past days

and nights. She sat feeling coldly miserable and forlorn and

solitary; conscious that one interest was living at her heart

yet, but also conscious that it was to live and die by its own

strength as it might; and that in all the world she had

nothing else; no, nor never should have anything else. She

could not have a father again; and even he had been nothing

for the companionship of such a spirit as hers, not what she

wanted to make her either good or happy. But little as he had

done of late to make her either, the name, and even the

nominal guardianship, and what the old childish affection had

clung to, were gone -- and never could come back; and Elizabeth

wept sometimes with a very bowed head and heart, and sometimes

sat stiff and quiet, gazing at the varying mountain outline,

and the fathomless shadows that repeated it upon the water.

The night drew on, as the hills closed in more and more upon

the narrowing river channel, and the mountain heads lifted

themselves more high, and the shadows spread out broader upon

the river. Every light along shore had long been out; but now

one glimmered down at them faintly from under a high thick

wooded bluff, on the east shore; and the Julia Ann as she came

up towards it, edged down a little constantly to that side of

the river.

"Where are we going?" said Elizabeth presently. "We're getting

out of the channel."

But she saw immediately that Winthrop was asleep. It made her

feel more utterly alone and forlorn than she had done before.

With a sort of additional chill at her heart, she looked round

for some one else of whom to ask her question, and saw the

skipper just come on deck. Elizabeth got up to speak to him.

"Aren't we getting out of our course?"

"Eg-zackly," said Mr. Hildebrand. "Most out of it. That

light's the Mill, marm."

"The Mill! Cowslip's Mill?"

"Well, it's called along o' my father, 'cause he's lived

there, I s'pose, -- and made it, -- and owns to it, too, as far

as that goes; -- I s'pose it's as good a right to have his name

as any one's."

Elizabeth sat down and looked at the light, which now had a

particularly cheerless and hopeless look for her. It was the

token of somebody's home, shining upon one who had none; it

was a signal of the near ending of a guardianship and society

which for the moment had taken home's place; a reminder that

presently she must be thrown upon her own guidance; left to

take care of herself alone in the world, as best she might.

The journey, with all its pain, had been a sort of little set-

off from the rest of her life, where the contrasts of the past

and the future did not meet. They were coming back now. She

felt their shadows lying cold upon her. It was one of the

times in her life of greatest desolation, the while the sloop

was drawing down to her berth under the home light, and making

fast in her moorings. The moon was riding high, and dimly

shewed Elizabeth the but half-remembered points and outlines;

-- and there was a contrast! She did not cry; she looked, with

a cold chilled feeling of eye and mind that would have been

almost despair, if it had not been for the one friend asleep

at her side. And he was nothing to her. Nothing. He was

nothing to her. Elizabeth said it to herself; but for all that

he was there, and it was a comfort to see him there.

The sails rattled down to the deck; and with wind and headway

the sloop gently swung up to her appointed place. Another

light came out of the house, in a lantern; and another hand on

shore aided the sloop's crew in making her fast.

"How can he sleep through it all!" thought Elizabeth. "I

wonder if anything ever could shake him out of his settled

composure -- asleep or awake, it's all the same."

"Ain't you goin' ashore?" said the skipper at her side.

"No -- not now."

"They'll slick up a better place for you than we could fix up

in this here little hulk. Though she ain't a small sloop

neither, by no means."

"What have you got aboard there, Hild'?" called out a voice

that came from somewhere in the neighbourhood of the lantern.

"Gals?"

"Governor Landholm and some company," said the skipper in a

more moderate tone. The other voice took no hint of

moderation.

"Governor Landholm? -- is _he_ along? Well -- glad to see him. Run

from the yallow fever, eh?"

"Is mother up, father?"

"Up? -- no! -- What on arth!"

"Tell her to get up, and make some beds for folks that

couldn't sleep aboard sloop; and have been navigatin' all

night."

"Go, and I'll look after the sloop till morning, Captain,"

said Winthrop sitting up on his sail.

"Won't you come ashore and be comfortable?" said father and

son at once.

"I am comfortable."

"But you'll be better off there, Governor."

"Don't think I could, Hild'. I'm bound to stay by the ship."

"Won't you come, Miss?" said the skipper addressing Elizabeth.

"You'll be better ashore."

"Oh yes -- come along -- all of you," said the old sloop-master

on the land.

"I'm in charge of the passengers, Captain," said Winthrop;

"and I don't think it is safe for any of them to go off before

morning."

The request was urged to Elizabeth. But Winthrop quietly

negatived it every time it was made; and the sloop's masters

at last withdrew. Elizabeth had not spoken at all.

"How do you do?" said Winthrop gravely, when the Cowslips,

father and son, had turned their backs upon the vessel.

"Thank you --" said Elizabeth, -- and stopped there.

"You are worn out."

"No," -- Elizabeth answered under her breath; and then

gathering it, went on, -- "I am afraid you are."

"I am perfectly well," he said. "But you ought to rest."

"I will, -- by and by," said Elizabeth desperately. "I will

stay here till the daylight comes. It will not be long, will

it?"

He made no answer. The sloop's deck was in parts blockaded

with a load of shingles. Winthrop went to these, and taking

down bundle after bundle, disposed them so as to make a

resting-place of greater capabilities than the armless wooden

chair in which Elizabeth had been sitting all night. Over

this, seat, back, sides and all, he spread the sail on which

he had been lying.

"Is there nothing in the shape of a pillow or cushion that you

could get out of the cabin now?" said he.

"But you have given me your sail," said Elizabeth.

"I'm master of the sloop now. Can't you get a pillow?"

Since so much had been done for her, Elizabeth consented to do

this for herself. She fetched a pillow from the cabin; and

Winthrop himself bestowed it in the proper position; and with

a choking feeling of gratitude and pleasure that did not

permit her to utter one word, Elizabeth placed herself in the

box seat made for her, took off her bonnet and laid her head

down. She knew that Winthrop laid her light shawl over her

head; but she did not stir. Her thanks reached only her

pillow, in the shape of two or three hot tears; then she

slept.

CHAPTER X.

Beneath my palm-trees, by the river side,

I sat a weeping; in the whole world wide

There was no one to ask me why I wept, --

And so I kept

Brimming the water-lily cups with tears

Cold as my fears.

SHELLEY.

The dawn had fairly broken, but that was all, when Winthrop

and old Mr. Cowslip met on the little wharf landing which

served instead of courtyard to the house. The hands clasped

each other cordially.

"How do you do? Glad to see you in these parts!" was the

hearty salutation of the old man to the young.

"Thank you, Mr. Cowslip," said Winthrop, returning the grasp

of the hand.

"I don't see but you keep your own," the old man went on,

looking at him wistfully. "Why don't you come up our way

oftener? It wouldn't hurt you."

"I don't know about that," said Winthrop. "My business lies

that way, you know."

"Ah! -- 'tain't as good business as our'n, now," said Mr.

Cowslip. "You'd better by half be up there on the old place,

with your wife and half a dozen children about you. Ain't

married yet, Governor, be you?"

"No sir."

"Goin' to be?"

"I don't know what I am going to be, sir."

"Ah! --" said the old miller with a sly smile. "Is that what

you've got here in the sloop with you now? I guessed it, and

Hild' said it wa'n't -- not as he knowed on -- but I told him he

didn't know everything."

"Hild' is quite right. But there are two ladies here who are

going up to Shahweetah. Can you give us a boat, Mr. Cowslip?"

"A boat? -- How many of you?"

"Four -- and baggage. Your boat is large enough -- used to be

when I went in her."

"Used to be when I went in her," said the old skipper; "but

there it is! She won't hold nobody now."

"What's the matter?"

"She took too many passengers the other day, -- that is, she

took one too many. Shipped a cargo of fresh meat, sir, and it

wa'n't stowed in right, and the 'Bessie Bell' broke her heart

about it. Like to ha' gone to the bottom."

"What do you mean?"

"Why, I was comin' home from Diver's Rock the other day -- just

a week ago last Saturday -- I had been round there up the shore

after fish; -- you know the rock where the horse mackerel

comes? -- me and little Archie; lucky enough we had no more

along. By the by, I hope you'll go fishing, Winthrop -- the

mackerel's fine this year. How long you're goin' to stay?"

"Only a day or two, sir."

"Ah! -- Well -- we were comin' home with a good mess o' fine

fish, and when we were just about in the middle of the river,

comin' over, -- the fish had been jumping all along the

afternoon, shewing their heads and tails more than common; and

I'd been sayin' to Archie it was a sign o' rain -- 'tis, you

know, -- and just as we were in the deepest of the river, about

half way over, one of 'em came up and put himself aboard of

us."

"A sturgeon?"

"Just that, sir; as sound a fellow as ever you saw in your

life -- just the length of one of my little oars -- longer than

I be -- eight feet wanting one inch, he measured, for the blade

of that oar has been broken off a bit -- several inches, -- and

what do you think he weighed? -- Two hundred and forty pound."

"So it seems you got him safe to land, where you could weigh

him."

"And measure him. I forgot I was talkin' to a lawyer," said

the old man laughing. "Yes, I didn't think much how long he

was at the time, I guess! He came in as handsome as ever you

saw anything done -- just slipped himself over the gunwale so --

and duv under one of the th'arts, and druv his nose through

the bottom of the boat."

"Kept it there, I hope?"

"Ha, ha! Not so fast but there came in a'most water enough to

float him again by the time we got to land. He was a power of

a fellow!"

"And the 'Bessie' don't float?"

"No; she's laid up with three broken ribs."

"No other boat on hand?"

"There's a little punt out there, that Hild' goes a fishin' in

-- that'd carry two or three people. But it wouldn't take the

hull on ye."

"There's the sloop's boat."

"She leaks," said the miller. "She wants to be laid up as bad

as the 'Bessie.'"

"Have you any sort of a team, Mr. Cowslip?"

"Yes! -- there's my little wagon -- it'll hold two. But you

ain't wanting it yet, be you?"

"As soon as it can go -- if it _can_ go. Is there a horse to the

wagon?"

"Sartain! But won't you stop and take a bit?"

"No sir. If you will let some of the boys take up the punt

with her load, I'll drive the wagon myself, and as soon as you

can let me have it."

"Jock! -- tackle up the wagon! --that 'ere little red one in the

barn," shouted the miller. "Hild' 'll see to the boat-load --

or I will, -- and send it right along. I'm sorry you won't

stop."

Winthrop turned back to the sloop. Elizabeth met him there

with the question, "if she might not go now?"

"As soon as you please. I am going to drive you up to

Shahweetah. The boat will carry the rest, but it is too small

to take all of us."

"I'm very glad!" -- Elizabeth could not help saying.

She granted half a word of explanation to Mrs. Nettley, her

bonnet was hastily thrown on, and she stood with Winthrop on

the wharf before the little wagon was fairly ready. But Jock

was not tardy neither; and a very few minutes saw them seated

and the horse's head turned from the Mill.

The dawn was fresh and fair yet, hardly yielding to day. In

utter silence they drove swiftly along the road, through the

woods and out upon the crest of tableland overlooking the bay;

just above the shore where the huckleberry party had coasted

along, that afternoon years before. By the time they got

there, the day had begun to assert itself. Little clouds over

Wut-a-qut-o's head were flushing into loveliness, and casting

down rosy tints on the water; the mountain slopes were growing

bright, and a soft warm colouring flung through all the air

from the coming rays of the coming sun. The cat-birds were

wide awake and very busy; the song sparrows full of gladness;

and now and then, further off, a wood-thrush, less worldly

than the one and less unchastened than the other, told of

hidden and higher sweets, in tones further removed from Earth

than his companions knew. The wild, pure, ethereal notes

thrilled like a voice from some clear region where earthly

defilement had been overcome, and earthly sorrows had lost

their power. Between whiles, the little song sparrows strained

their throats with rejoicing; but that was the joy of

hilarious nature that sorrows and defilement had never

touched. The cat-birds spoke of business, and sung over it,

ambitious and self-gratulatory, and proud. And then by turns

came the strange thrush's note, saying, as if they knew it and

had proved it,

"WHEN HE GIVETH QUIETNESS, THEN WHO CAN MAKE TROUBLE?"

The travellers had ridden so far without speaking a word. If

Elizabeth was sometimes weeping, she kept herself very quiet,

and perfectly still. The sights and sounds that were abroad

entered her mind by a side door, if they entered at all.

Winthrop might have taken the benefit of them; but up to the

bend of the bay he had driven fast and attentively. Here he

suffered the horse to slacken his pace and come even to a

walk, while his eye took note of the flushing morning, and

perhaps the song of the birds reached his ear. It was not of

them he spoke.

"Do you mean to begin upon the first chapter of Matthew?" he

said, when the horse had walked the length of some two or

three minutes.

"Yes! -- I do" -- said Elizabeth, turning her face towards him.

"According to the rules?"

The answer was spoken more hesitatingly, but again it was

'yes.'

"I am glad of that," he said.

"Mr. Winthrop," said Elizabeth presently, speaking it seemed

with some effort, -- "if I get into any difficulty -- if I

cannot understand, -- I mean, if I am in any real trouble, --

may I write to you to ask about it?"

"With great pleasure. I mean, it would give me great pleasure

to have you do so."

"I should be very much obliged to you," she said humbly.

She did not see, for she did not look to see, a tiny show of a

smile which spread itself over her companion's face. They

drove on fast, till the bottom of the bay was left and they

descended from the tableland, by Sam Doolittle's, to the road

which skirted the south side of Shahweetah. Winthrop looked

keenly as he passed at the old fields and hillsides. They were

uncultivated now; fallow lands and unmown grass pastures held

the place of the waving harvests of grain and new-reaped

stubblefields that used to be there in the old time. The

pastures grew rank, for there were even no cattle to feed

them; and the fallows were grown with thistles and weeds. But

over what might have been desolate lay the soft warmth of the

summer morning; and rank pasture and uncared fallow ground

took varied rich and bright hues under the early sun's rays.

Those rays had now waked the hilltops and sky and river, and

were just tipping the woods and slopes of the lower ground. By

the bend meadow Winthrop drew in his horse again and looked

fixedly.

"Does it seem pleasant to you?" he asked.

"How should it, Mr. Winthrop?" Elizabeth said coldly.

"Do you change your mind about wishing to be here?"

"No, not at all. I might as well be here as anywhere. I would

rather -- I have nowhere else to go."

He made no comment, but drove on fast again, till he drew up

once more at the old back door of the old house. It seemed a

part of the solitude, for nothing was stirring. Elizabeth sat

and watched Winthrop tie the horse; then he came and helped

her out of the wagon.

"Lean on me," said he. "You are trembling all over."

He put her arm within his, and led her up to the door and

knocked.

"Karen is up -- unless she has forgotten her old ways," said

Winthrop. He knocked again.

A minute after, the door slowly opened its upper half, and

Karen's wrinkled face and white cap and red shortgown were

before them. Winthrop did not speak. Karen looked in

bewilderment; then her bewilderment changed into joy.

"Mr. Winthrop! -- Governor!" --

And her hand was stretched out, and clasped his in a long mute

stringent clasp, which her eyes at least said was all she

could do.

"How do you do, Karen?"

"I'm well -- the Lord has kept me. But you --"

"I am well," said Winthrop. "Will you let us come in, Karen? --

This lady has been up all night, and wants rest and

refreshment."

Karen looked suspiciously at 'this lady,' as she unbolted the

lower half of the door and let them in; and again when

Winthrop carefully placed her in a chair and then went off

into the inner room for one which he knew was more easy, and

made her change the first for it.

"And what have ye come up for now, governor?" she said, when

she had watched them both, with an unsatisfied look upon her

face and a tone of deep satisfaction coming out in her words.

"Breakfast, Karen. What's to be had?"

"Breakfast? La!" -- said the old woman, -- "if you had told me

you's coming -- What do you expect I'll have in the house for

my breakfast, Governor?"

"Something --," said Winthrop, taking the tongs and settling

the sticks of wood in the chimney to burn better. Karen stood

and looked at him.

"What have you got, Karen?" said Winthrop, setting up the

tongs.

"I ha'n't got nothing for company," said Karen, grinning.

"That'll do very well," said Winthrop. "Give me the coffee and

I'll make it; and you see to the bread, Karen. You have milk

and cream, haven't you?"

"Yes, Governor."

"And eggs?"

"La! yes."

"Where are they?"

"Mr. Landholm, don't trouble yourself, pray!" said Elizabeth.

"I am in no hurry for anything. Pray don't!"

"I don't intend it," said he. "Don't trouble _your_ self. Would

you rather go into another room?"

Elizabeth would not; and therefore and thereafter kept herself

quiet, watching the motions of Karen and her temporary master.

Karen seemed in a maze; but a few practical advices from

Winthrop at last brought her back to the usual possession of

her senses and faculties.

"Who is she?" Elizabeth heard her whisper as she began to

bustle about. And Winthrop's answer, not whispered,

"How long ago do you suppose this coffee was parched?"

"No longer ago than yesterday. La sakes! Governor, -- I'll do

some fresh for you if you want it."

"No time for that, Karen. You get on with those cakes."

Elizabeth watched Winthrop with odd admiration and curiosity,

mixed for the moment with not a little of gratified feeling;

but the sense of desolation sitting back of all. He seemed to

have come out in a new character, or rather to have taken up

an old one; for no one could suppose it worn for the first

time. Karen had been set to making cakes with all speed.

Winthrop seemed to have taken the rest of the breakfast upon

himself. He had found the whereabout of the eggs, and ground

some coffee, and made it and set it to boil in Karen's tin

coffeepot.

"What are you after now, Mr. Winthrop?" said Karen, looking

round from her pan and moulding board. "These'll be in the

spider before your coffee's boiled."

"They'll have to be quick, then," said Winthrop, going on with

his rummaging.

"What are you after, Governor? -- there's nothin' there but the

pots and kittles."

One of which, however, Winthrop brought out as if it was the

thing wanted, and put upon the fire with water in it. Going

back to the receptacle of 'pots and kittles,' he next came

forth with the article Karen had designated as the 'spider,'

and set that in order due upon its appropriate bed of coals.

"La sakes! Governor!" said Karen, in a sort of fond

admiration, -- "ha'n't you forgot nothin'?"

"Now Karen," said Winthrop, when she had covered the bottom of

the hot iron with her thin cakes, -- "you set the table and

I'll take care of 'em."

"There's the knife, then," said Karen. "Will ye know when to

turn them? There ain't fire enough to bake 'em by the blaze."

"I've not forgotten so much," said Winthrop. "Let's have a cup

and saucer and plate, Karen."

"Ye sha'n't have _one_," said Karen, casting another inquisitive

and doubtful glance towards the silent, pale, fixed figure

sitting in the middle of her kitchen. He did have one,

however, before she had got the two ready; despatched Karen

from the table for sugar and cream; and then poured out

himself a cup of his own preparation, and set it on Karen's

half-spread table, and came to Elizabeth. He did not ask her

if she would have it, nor say anything in fact; but gently

raising her with one hand, he brought forward her chair with

the other, and placed both where he wanted them to be, in the

close neighbourhood of the steaming coffee. Once before,

Elizabeth had known him take the same sort of superintending

care of her, when she was in no condition to take care of

herself. It was inexpressibly soothing; and yet she felt as if

she could have knelt down on the floor, and given forth her

very life in tears. She looked at the coffee with a motionless

face, till his hand held it out to her. Not to drink it was

impossible, though she was scarcely conscious of swallowing

anything but tears. When she took the cup from her lips, she

found an egg, hot out of the water, on her plate, which was

already supplied also with butter. Her provider was just

adding one of the cakes he had been baking.

"I can't eat!" said Elizabeth, looking up.

"You must, --" Winthrop answered.

In the same tone in which he had been acting. Elizabeth obeyed

it as involuntarily.

"Who is the lady, Governor?" Karen ventured, when she had

possessed herself of the cake-knife, and had got Winthrop

fairly seated at _his_ breakfast.

"This lady is the mistress of the place, Karen."

"The mistress! Ain't you the master?" -- Karen inquired

instantly.

"No. I have no right here any longer, Karen."

"I heered it was selled, but I didn't rightly believe it," the

old woman said sadly. "And the mistress 'll be turning _me_ away

now?"

"Tell her no," whispered Elizabeth.

"I believe not, Karen, unless you wish it."

"What should I wish it for? I've been here ever since I come

with Mis' Landholm, when she come first, and she left me here;

and I want to stay here, in her old place, till I'm called to

be with her again. D'ye think it'll be long, Governor?"

"Are you in haste, Karen?"

"I don't want fur to stay" said the old woman. "She's gone,

and I can't take care o' you no longer, nor no one. I'd like

to be gone, too -- yes, I would."

"You have work to do yet, Karen. You may take as good care as

you can of this lady."

Again Karen looked curiously and suspiciously at her, for a

minute in silence.

"Is she one of the Lord's people?" she asked suddenly.

Elizabeth looked up on the instant, in utter astonishment at

the question; first at Karen and then at Winthrop. The next

thing was a back-sweeping tide of feeling, which made her drop

her bread and her cup from her hands, and hide her face in

them with a bitter burst of tears. Winthrop looked concerned,

and Karen confounded. But she presently repeated her question

in a half whisper at Winthrop.

"Is she? --"

"There is more company coming, Karen, for you to take care

of," he said quietly. "I hope you have cakes enough. Miss Haye

-- I see the boat-load has arrived -- will you go into the other

room?"

She rose, and not seeing where she went, let him lead her. The

front part of the house was unfurnished; but to the little

square passage-way where the open door let in the breeze from

the river, Winthrop brought a chair, and there she sat down.

He left her there and went back to see to the other members of

the party, and as she guessed to keep them from intruding upon

her. She was long alone.

The fresh sweet air blew in upon her hot face and hands,

reminding her what sort of a world it came from; and after the

first few violent bursts of pain, Elizabeth presently raised

her head to look out and see, in a sort of dogged willingness

to take the contrast which she knew was there. The soft fair

hilly outlines she remembered, in the same August light; -- the

bright bend of the river -- a sloop sail or two pushing lazily

up; -- the same blue of a summer morning overhead; -- the little

green lawn immediately at her feet, and the everlasting

cedars, with their pointed tops and their hues of patient

sobriety -- all stood nearly as she had left them, how many

years before. And herself -- Elizabeth felt as if she could

have laid herself down on the doorstep and died, for mere

heart-heaviness. In this bright sunny world, what had she to

do? The sun had gone out of her heart. What was to become of

her? What miserable part should she play, all alone by

herself? She despised herself for having eaten breakfast that

morning. What business had she to eat, or to have any appetite

to eat, when she felt so? But Winthrop had made her do it.

What for? Why should he? It was mere aggravation, to take care

of her for a day, and then throw her off for ever to take care

of herself. How soon would he do that? --

She was musing, her eyes on the ground; and had quite

forgotten the sunny landscape before her with all its gentle

suggestions; when Winthrop's voice sounded pleasantly in her

ear, asking if she felt better. Elizabeth looked up.

"I was thinking," she said, "that if there were nothing better

to be had in another world, I could almost find it in my heart

to wish I had never been born into this!"

She expected that he would make some answer to her, but he did

not. He was quite silent; and Elizabeth presently began to

question with herself whether she had said something dreadful.

She was busily taking up her own words, since he had not saved

her the trouble. She found herself growing very much ashamed

of them.

"I suppose that was a foolish speech," she said, after a few

moments of perfect silence, -- "a speech of impatience."

But Winthrop neither endorsed nor denied her opinion; he said

nothing about it; and Elizabeth was exceedingly mortified.

"If you wanted to rebuke me," she thought, "you could not have

done it better. I suppose there is no rebuke so sharp as that

one is obliged to administer to oneself. And your cool keeping

silence is about as effectual a way of telling me that you

have no interest in my concerns as even you could have

devised."

Elizabeth's eyes must have swallowed the landscape whole, for

they certainly took in no distinct part of it.

"How are you going to make yourself comfortable here?" said

Winthrop presently; -- "these rooms are unfurnished."

She might have said that she did not expect to be comfortable

anywhere; but she swallowed that too.

"I will go and see what I can do in the way of getting some

furniture together," he went on. "I hope you will be able to

find some way of taking rest in the mean time -- though I

confess I do not see how."

"Pray do not!" said Elizabeth starting up, and her whole

manner and expression changing. "I am sure you are tired to

death now."

"Not at all. I slept last night."

"How much? Pray do not go looking after anything! You will

trouble me very much."

"I should be sorry to do that."

"I can get all the rest I want."

"Where?"

"On the rocks -- on the grass."

"Might do for a little while," said Winthrop; -- "I hope it

will; but I must try for something better."