a
straight run for the rocks.

"How pleasant it is to hear the oars again!" Winnie said.
Winthrop said nothing.

Swiftly they pulled up, dappling the smooth grey water with
falling drops from the oar-blades, and leaving behind them two
lines of spreading wavelets that tracked the boat's way.
Cowslip's Mill fell into the distance, and all that shore, as
they pulled out into the middle of the river; then they drew
near the old granite ridge of Diver's Rock on the other side.
The sun had got so low down as that now, and the light of
years ago was on the same grey bluffs and patches of wood. It
was just like years ago; the trees stood where they did, ay,
and the sunlight; the same shadows fell; and the river washed
the broken foot of the point with, it might be, the very same
little waves and eddies. And there, a mile further on, Wut-a-
qut-o's high green side rose up from the water. Winnie had
taken off her bonnet and sat with her head resting upon
Winthrop's side or arm, her common position whenever she could
get it. And she sat and looked, first at one thing and then at
another, with quiet tears running and some times streaming
down her face. Then the boat struck off from Diver's Rock and
pushed straight over for the rocks of Shahweetah. As it neared
them, the dear old trees stood forth more plainly to view,
each one for itself; and the wonted footholds, on turf and
stone, could be told and could be seen, apart one from the
other. Poor Winnie could not look at them then, but she put
her head down and sobbed her greeting to them all.

"Winnie," -- said Winthrop softly, and she felt his arm closer
drawn around her, -- "you must not do that."

It mattered little what Winthrop asked Winnie to do; she never
failed to obey him. She stopped crying now, and in another
moment was smiling to him her delight, through the drops that
held their place yet in her eyes and on her cheeks.

The little boat was shoved in to the usual place among the
rocks and the passengers got out.

"What's the fare, Hild'? -- sloop and all?"

The skipper stood on the rocks and looked into the water.

"Will you let me come to you to clear me out, the first time I
get into trouble?"

"Yes."

"Then we're square!" he said, preparing to jump back into his
boat.

"_Then_ hasn't come," said Winthrop; "let's keep things square
as we go along."

"All right," said the skipper. "Couldn't take nothin' from you
the first time, Governor."

And