t is not likely this answer will settle the question,
Winnie," he remarked.

"O no, I suppose not; but I want to know what they say."

So they had supper; and after supper she watched while he sat
reading it; as leaf after leaf was turned over, from the
close-written and close-lying package in Winthrop's hand to
the array of pages that had already been turned back and lay
loose piled on the table; while Winthrop's pencil now and then
made an admonitory note in the margin. How his sister admired
him! -- and at last forgot the bill in studying the face of the
bill-reader. It was very little changed from its old wont; and
what difference there might be, was not the effect of a
business life. The cool and invariable self-possession and
self-command of the character had kept and promised to keep
him _himself_, in the midst of these and any other concerns,
however entangling or engrossing. The change, if any, was
traceable to somewhat else; or to somewhat else Winnie laid
it, -- though she would not have called it a change, but only
an added touch of perfection. She could not tell, as she
looked, what that touch had done; if told, perhaps it might
be, that it had added sweetness to the gravity and gravity to
the sweetness that was there before. How Winnie loved that
broad brow, and the very hand it rested on! All the well-known
lines of calmness and strength about the face her eye went
over and over again; she had quite forgotten Mr. Ryle; and she
saw Winthrop folding up the voluminous "answer," and she
hardly cared to ask what was in it. She watched the hands that
were doing it. _They_ seemed to speak his character, too; she
thought they did; calmness and decision were in the very
fingers. Before her curiosity had recovered itself enough to
speak, Mr. Herder came in.

They talked for awhile about other things; and then Winthrop
told him of the answer.

"You have it!" cried the naturalist. "And what do they say?"

'Nothing, fully and honestly."

"Ah ha! -- And do they grant -- do they allow anything of your
charges, that you made in your bill?"

"Yes -- in a vague and unsatisfactory way, they do."

"Vague --?" said the naturalist.

"Not open and clear. But the other day in the street I was
stopped by Mr. Brick --"

"Who is Brick?" said Mr. Herder.

"He is Ryle's lawyer. He stopped me a few days ago and told me
there was one matter in the answer with which perhaps I would
not be satisfied -- which perhaps I s