Rufus bit his lip and for several turns walked the room in
silence -- evidently because he could not speak. Perhaps the
words, 'Them that honour me, I will honour,' -- might have come
to his mind. But when at last he began to talk, it was not
upon that theme.

"Governor," -- he said in a quieter tone, -- "I wish you would
help me."

"I will -- if I can."

"Tell me what I shall do."

"Tell me your own thoughts first, Will."

"I have hardly any. The world at large seems a wretched and
utter blank to me."

"Make your mark on it, then."

"Ah! -- that is what we used to say. -- I don't see how it is to
be done."

"It is to be done in many ways, Rufus; in many courses of
action; and there is hardly one you can set your hand to, in
which it may not be done."

Rufus again struggled with some feeling that was too much for
him.

"Your notions have changed a little from the old ones, -- and I
have kept mine," he said.

"I spoke of _making your mark_, -- not of being seen to do it,"
his brother returned.

Again Rufus was silent.

"Well but the question is not of that now," he said, "but of
doing _something;_ -- to escape from the dishonour and the misery
of doing nothing."

"Still you have not told me your thoughts, Will. You are not
fit for a merchant."

"I'll never enter a counting-house again! -- for anything!" was
Rufus's reply.

"If I were in your place, I should take up my old trade of
engineering again, just where I left it off."

Rufus walked, and walked.

"But I am fit for better things," -- he said at length.

"Then you are fit for that."

"I suppose that follows," said Rufus with some disdainful
expression.

"There is no more respectable profession."

"It gives a man small chance to distinguish himself," said
Rufus, -- "and it takes one out of the world."

"Distinction may be attained almost anywhere," said Winthrop.

"'Who sweeps a room as for thy laws,
"'Makes that and th' action fine.'"

"I should like to see _you_ do it!" was Rufus's scornful
rejoinder.

"What?"

"Sweep rooms by way of distinction."

"I don't know about the distinction," said Winthrop; "but the
_thing_ you may see me do any morning, if you come at the right
hour."

"Sweep these rooms?"

"With a broomstick."

"Why Winthrop, that's beneath you!"

"I have been thinking so lately," said Winthrop. "It wasn't,
in the days when I couldn't afford to pay any one for doing
it; and those days reached dow