the old woman. "Karen's done all she
can for ye when she's took care of ye this time. But I'll find
what I have to do -- and I'll do it -- and then I'll go!" -- she
said, with a curious modulation of the tones of her voice that
came near some of the Methodist airs in which she delighted.
"Governor'll take care o' you, Winnie; and the Lord'll take
care o' him!"

Both brother and sister smiled a little at Karen's arrangement
of things; but neither contradicted her.

"And how do you manage here, Karen, all alone? -- do you keep
comfortable?"

"I'm comfortable, Mr. Winthrop," she said with half a smile; --
"I have lived comfortable all my life. I seem to see Mis'
Landholm round now, times, jus' like she used to be; and I
know we'll be soon all together again. I think o' that when
I'm dreary."

She was a singular old figure, as she sat in the corner there
with her head a little on one side, leaning her cheek on her
finger, and with the quick change of energetic life and
subdued patience in her manner.

"Don't get any dinner for us, Karen," said Winthrop as they
rose from table. "We have enough for dinner in our basket."

"Ye must take it back again to Mannahatta," said Karen. "Ye'r
dinner'll be ready -- roast chickens and new potatoes and
huckleberry pie -- the chickens are just fat, and ye never see
nicer potatoes this time o' year; and Anderese don't pick very
fast, but he'll have huckleberries enough home for you to eat
all the ways ye like. And milk I know ye like'm with,
Governor."

"Give me the basket then, Karen, and I'll furnish the
huckleberries."

"He'll do it -- Anderese'll get 'em, Mr. Winthrop, -- not you."

"Give me the basket! -- I would rather do it, Karen. Anderese
has got to dig the potatoes."

"O yes, and we'll go out and spend the morning in the woods,
won't we, Governor?" said his sister.

The basket and Winnie were ready together and the brother and
sister struck off into the woods to the north of the house.
They had to cross but a little piece of level ground and
sunshine and they were under the shade of the evergreens which
skirted all the home valley. The ground as soon became uneven
and rocky, broken into little heights and hollows, and strewn
all over with a bedding of stones, large and small; except
where narrow foot-tracks or cowpaths wound along the mimic
ravines or gently climbed the hilly ridges. Among these stones
and sharing the soil with them, uprose the cedars, pines,