Hills of the Shatemuc Part 37

"_I_ don't. I like the other a great deal the best."

"He wasn't very glad to see us," said Elizabeth.

"Why wasn't he? Yes he was. He was as glad as the other one."

"The other one didn't care twopence about it."

"And what did this one care?"

"He cared, --" said Elizabeth.

"Well, I like he should -- the other one don't care about anything."

"Yes he does," said Elizabeth.

"I shall give Mr. Haye a hint --that he had better not send you here another summer," said Rose wittily; -- "there is no telling what anybody will care for. I wouldn't have thought it of you."

"Can't you be sensible about anything!" said Elizabeth, with a sort of contemptuous impatience. "If I had anybody else to talk to, I would not give you the benefit of my thoughts. I tell them to you because I have n.o.body else; and I really wish you could make up your mind to answer me as I deserve; -- or not at all."

"You are a strange girl," said Miss Cadwallader, when they had walked in company with ill-humour as far as the brow of the hill.

"I am glad you think so."

"You are a great deal too old for your age."

"I am not!" said Elizabeth, who shading her eyes with her hand had again stopped to look over the landscape. "I should be very sorry to think that. You are two years older, Rose, in body, than I am; and ten years older in spirit, this minute."

"Does the spirit grow old faster than the body?" said Rose laughing.

"Yes -- sometimes. -- How pretty all that is!"

'That' meant the wide view, below and before them, of river and hill and meadow. It was said with a little breath of a sigh, and Elizabeth turned away and began to go down the road.

Winifred gave it as her opinion to her mother privately, after they got home, that Miss Haye was a very ill-behaved young lady.

CHAPTER XII.

The thing we long for, that we are, For one transcendent moment, Before the Present, poor and bare, Can make its sneering comment.

Still through our paltry stir and strife Glows down the wished Ideal, And Longing moulds in clay what Life Carves in the marble Real.

LOWELL.

Mr. Haye came the latter part of September to fetch his daughter and his charge home; and spent a day or two in going over the farm and making himself acquainted with the river. He was a handsome man, and very comfortable in face and figure.

The wave of prosperity had risen up to his very lips, and its ripples were forever breaking there in a succession of easy smiles. He made himself readily at home in the family; with a well-mannered sort of good-humour, which seemed to belong to his fine broadcloth and beautifully plaited ruffles. Mr.

Landholm was not the only one who enjoyed his company. Between him and Rufus and Miss Cadwallader and Mr. Haye, the round game of society was kept up with great spirit.

One morning Mr. Haye was resting himself with a book in his daughter's room; he had had a long tramp with the farmer. Rose went out in search of something more amusing. Elizabeth sat over her book for awhile, then looked up.

"Father," she said, "I wish you could do something to help that young man."

"What young man?"

"Winthrop Landholm."

"What does he want help for?"

"He is trying to get an education -- trying hard, I fancy,"

said Elizabeth, putting down her book and looking at her father, -- "he wants to make himself something more than a farmer."

"Why should he want to make himself anything more than a farmer?" said Mr. Haye without looking off _his_ book.

"Why would you, sir?"

"I would just as lief be a farmer as anything else," said Mr.

Haye, "if I had happened to be born in that line. It's as good a way of life as any other."

"Why, father! -- You would rather be what you are now?"

"Well -- I wasn't born a farmer," said Mr. Haye conclusively.

"Then you would have everybody stay where he happens to be!"

"I wouldn't have anything about it," said Mr. Haye. "That's what I want for myself --let other people do what they will."

"But some people can't do what they will."

"Well --Be thankful you're not one of 'em."

"Father, if I can have what I will, I would have you help this young man."

"I don't know how to help him, child; -- he's not in my way. If he wanted to go into business, there would be something in it, but I have nothing to do with schools and Colleges."

Elizabeth's cheek lit up with one of the prettiest colours a woman's cheek ever wears, -- the light of generous indignation.

"I wish _I_ had the means!" she said.

"What would you do with it?"

"I would help him, somehow."

"My dear, you could not do it; they would not let you; their pride would stand in the way of everything of the kind."

"I don't believe it," said Elizabeth, the fire of her eye s.h.i.+ning now through drops that made it brighter; -- "I am sure something could be done."

"It's just as well undone," said Mr. Haye calmly.