covered the sky stooped lower down
and hung their grey drapery on the mountains more thick and
dark. But it did not rain yet, nor till Winifred turned
wearily away from the window, saying that "they had got
there;" -- meaning that the little black speck on the water had
reached the little white and brown spot on the shore which
marked the place of Cowslip's Mill. Then the clouds began to
fringe themselves off into rain, and Cowslip's Mill was soon
hid, and river and hills were all grey under their thick
watery veil. "But Governor will be in the stage, mamma," said
Winifred. "He won't mind it."

Poor Winifred! Poor Governor! -- He was not in the stage. There
was no room for him. His only choice was to take a seat beside
the driver, unless he would wait another day; and he never
thought of waiting. He mounted up to the box, and the stage-
coach went away with him; while more slowly and soberly the
little boat set its head homewards and pulled up through the
driving rain.

It rained steadily, and all things soon owned the domination
of the watery clouds. The horses, the roads, the rocks, the
stage-coach, and the two outsiders, who submitted for a long
distance in like silence and quiet; though with the one it was
the quiet of habit and with the other the quiet of necessity.
Or it might be of abstraction; for Winthrop's mind took little
heed to the condition of his body.

It was busy with many greater things. And among them the
little word to which his sister's finger had pointed, lodged
itself whether he would or no, and often when he would not.
Now NOW, -- "God NOW commandeth all men everywhere to repent."
It was at the back of Winthrop's thoughts, wherever they might
be; it hung over his mental landscape like the rain-cloud; he
could look at nothing, as it were, but across the gentle
shadows of that truth falling upon his conscience. The rain-
drops dimpled it into the water, when the road lay by the
river-side; and the bare tree-stems they were passing, that
said so much of the past and the future, said also quietly and
soberly, "NOW." The very stage-coach reminded him he was on a
journey to the end of which the stage-coach could not bring
him, and for the end of which he had no plans nor no
preparations made. And the sweet images of home said, "_now_ --
make them." And yet all this, though true and real in his
spirit, was so still and so softly defined, that, -- like the
reflection of the hills in the smooth wa