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

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

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

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

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

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

"Yes you did."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He hesitated an instant, and then answered,

"Did _you?_"

Elizabeth had no words. Her face sought the shelter of her
sunbonnet again, and she almost felt as if she would have
liked to seek the shelter of the earth bodily, by diving down
into it. Her brain was swimming. There was a rush of thoughts
and ideas, a train of scattered causes and consequences, which
then she had no power to set in order; but the rush almost
overwhelmed her, and what was wanting, shame added. She was
vexed with herself for her jealousy in divining and her
impatience in asking foolish questions; and in her vexation