Hills of the Shatemuc Part 66

"No."

"I thought you answered as if you believed her when she said so."

"It isn't best to tell all one's thoughts," said Winthrop smiling.

Elizabeth went back to her box seat.

"I wish the rain would let us go home too," she said.

"Your wishes are so accustomed to smooth travelling, they don't know what to make of a hindrance," said her companion.

Elizabeth knew it was true, and it vexed her. It seemed to imply that she had not been tried by life, and that n.o.body knew what she would be till she was tried. That was a very disagreeable thought. There again he had the advantage of her.

Nothing is reliable that is not tried. "And yet," she said to herself, "I _am_ reliable. I know I am."

"What can anybody's wish make of a hindrance?" was her reply.

"Graff it in well, and anybody can make a pretty large thorn of it."

"Why Mr. Winthrop! -- but I mean, in the way of dealing with it pleasantly?"

"Pleasantly? -- I don't know," said he; "unless they could get my mother's recipe."

"What does _her_ wish do with a hindrance?"

"It lies down and dies," he said, with a change of tone which shewed whither his thoughts had gone.

"I think I never wish mine to do that," said Elizabeth.

"What then? Remember you are speaking of hindrances absolute -- that cannot be removed."

"But Mr. Winthrop, do you think it is possible for one's wish to lie down and die so?"

"If I had not seen it, I might say that it was not."

"I don't understand it --I don't know what to make of it," said Elizabeth. "I don't think it is possible for mine."

Winthrop's thoughts went back a moment to the sweet calm brow, the rested face, that told of its truth and possibility in one instance.. He too did not understand it, but he guessed where the secret might lie.

"It must be a very happy faculty," said Elizabeth; -- "but it seems to me -- of course it is not so in that instance, -- but in the abstract, it seems to me rather tame; -- I don't like it. I have no idea of giving up!"

"There is no need of your giving up, in this case," said Winthrop. "Do you see that suns.h.i.+ne?"

"And the rainbow!" said Elizabeth.

She sprang to the door; and they both stood looking, while the parting gifts of the clouds were gently reaching the ground, and the sun taking a cleared place in the western heaven, painted over against them, broad and bright, the promissory token that the earth should be overwhelmed with the waters no more. The rain-drops glittered as they fell; the gra.s.s looked up in refreshed green where the sun touched it; the clouds were driving over from the west, leaving broken fragments behind them upon the blue; and the bright and sweet colours of the rainbow swept their circle in the east and almost finished it in the gra.s.s at the door of the blacksmith's shop. It was a lovely show of beauty that is as fresh the hundredth time as the first. But though Elizabeth looked at it and admired it, she was thinking of something else.

"You have no overshoes," said Winthrop, when they had set out on their way; -- "I am afraid you are not countrywoman enough to bear this."

"O yes I am," said Elizabeth, -- "I don't mind it -- I don't care for it. But Mr. Winthrop --"

"What were you going to say?" he asked, when he had waited half a minute to find out.

"You understood that I did not mean to speak of your mother, when I said that, about thinking it seemed tame to let one's wishes die out? -- I excepted her entirely in my thought -- I was speaking quite in the abstract."

"I know that, Miss Elizabeth."

She was quite satisfied with the smile with which he said it.

"How much better that odd little black child liked you than she did me," she went on with a change of subject and tone together.

"You were a little further off," said Winthrop.

"Further off?" said Elizabeth.

"I suppose she thought so."

"Then one must come near people in order to do them good?"

"One mustn't be _too_ far off," said Winthrop, "to have one's words reach them."

"But I didn't mean to be far off," said Elizabeth.

"I didn't mean to be near."

Elizabeth looked at him, but he was grave; and then she smiled, and then laughed.

"You've hit it!" she exclaimed. "I shall remember that."

"Take care, Miss Elizabeth," said Winthrop, as her foot slipped in the muddy way, -- "or you will have more to remember than would be convenient. You had better take my arm."

So she did; musing a little curiously at herself and that arm, which she had seen in a s.h.i.+rt-sleeve, carrying a pickaxe on shoulder; and making up her mind in spite of it all that she didn't care! So the walk home was not otherwise than comfortable. Indeed the beauty of it was more than once remarked on by both parties.

"Well!" said Rose, when at last Elizabeth came into the room where she was sitting, -- "have you got home?"

"Yes."

"What have you been doing all this while?"

"Getting very angry at you in the first place; and then cooling down as usual into the reflection that it was not worth while."

"Well, I hope Winthrop made good use of his opportunity?"

"Yes, he did," said Elizabeth coolly, taking off her things.

"And you have engaged him at last as your admirer?"

"Not at all; -- I have only engaged a little black girl to be my servant."

"A servant! What?"