e sky
without a cloud, except some waiting flecks of vapour around
the sun. The two friends stood still some little time, to look
or to think; looking especially at the fair glowing western
heaven, and the tossing water between, every roll of which was
with a dance and a sparkle.

"Does _this_ make anything clear?" asked Winthrop, when some
time had gone by without speech or movement from either of
them.

He spoke lightly enough; but the answer was given in a tone
that bespoke its truth.

"Oh no! --"

And Elizabeth's face was turned away so that he could see
nothing but her bonnet, beside the tremulous swell of the
throat; that he _did_ see.

"It has very often such an effect for me," -- he went on in the
same tone. "And I often come here for the very purpose of
trying it; when my head gets thick over law-papers."

"That may do for some things," said Elizabeth. "It won't for
others."

"This would work well along with my mother's recipe," he said.

"What is that?" said Elizabeth harshly. "You didn't tell me."

"I am hardly fit to tell you," he answered, "for I do not
thoroughly know it myself. But I know she would send you to
the Bible, --and tell you of a hand that she trusts to do
everything for her, and that she knows will do all things
well, and kindly."

"But does that hinder disagreeables from being disagreeables?"
said Elizabeth with some impatience of tone. "Does that hinder
aches from being pain?"

"Hardly. But I believe it stops or soothes the aching. I
believe it, because I have seen it."

Elizabeth stood still, her bosom swelling, and that fluttering
of her throat growing more fluttering. It got beyond her
command. The mixed passions and vexations, and with them a
certain softer and more undefined regret, reached a point
where she had no control over them. The tears would come, and
once arrived at that, they took their own way; with such a
rush of passionate indulgence, that a thought of the time and
the place and the witness, made nothing, or came in only to
swell the rush. The flood poured over the barrier with such
joy at being set free, that it carried all before it.
Elizabeth was just conscious of being placed on a seat, near
to which it happened that she was standing; and she knew
nothing more. She did not even know how completely she was
left to herself. Not till the fever of passion was brought a
little down, and recollection and shame began to take their
turn, and she checked he