annot you bear a little present
disappointment?"

"I do bear it, ma'am."

"But Winthrop has the very same things at stake as you have,
and I do not see him wear such a disconsolate face, -- ever."

"Winthrop --" the speaker began, and paused, every feature of
his fine face working with emotion. His hearers waited, but
whatever lay behind, nothing more of his meaning came out.

"Winthrop what? --" said his brother laughing.

"You are provokingly cool!" said the other, his eye changing
again.

"You have a right to find fault with that," said Winthrop
still laughing, "for certainly it is a quality with which _you_
never provoked anybody."

Rufus seemed to be swallowing more provocation than he had
expressed.

"What were you going to say of me, Rufus?" said the other
seriously.

"Nothing --"

"If you meant to say that I have not the same reason to be
disappointed that you have, you are quite right."

"I meant to say that; and I meant to say that you do not feel
_any_ disappointment as much as I do."

Winthrop did not attempt to mend this position. He only mended
the fire.

"I wish you need not be disappointed!" the mother said
sighing, looking at the fire with a very earnest face.

"My dear mother," said Winthrop cheerfully, "it is no use to
wish that in this world."

"Yes it is -- for there is a way to escape disappointments, --
if you would take it."

"To escape disappointments!" said Rufus.

"Yes."

"What is it?"

"Will you promise to follow it?"

"No mother," he said, with again a singular play of light and
shade over his face; -- "for it will be sure to be some
impossible way. I mean -- that an angel's wings may get over
the rough ground where poor human feet must stumble."

How much the eyes were saying that looked at each other!

"There is provision even for that," she answered. "'As an
eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young,
spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her
wings,' so the Lord declares he did once lead his people, --
and he will again, -- over rough ground or smooth."

"My dear mother," said Rufus, "you are very good, and I -- am
not very good."

"I don't know that that is much to the point," she said
smiling a little.

"Yes it is."

"Do you mean to say you cannot go the road that others have
gone, with the same help?"

"If I should say yes, I suppose you would disallow it," he
replied, beginning to walk up and down again; "but my