rdship' to stay there to
take care of me; -- and there is not in the world another
person left to me who could say even as much." --

"There is a silent peace-speaking in such a scene as this,"
presently said Winthrop, lying on his sail and looking at the
river.

"I dare say there is," Elizabeth answered sadly.

"You cannot feel it, perhaps?"

"Not a particle. I can just see that it might be."

"The Bible makes such constant use of natural imagery, that to
one familiar with it, the objects of nature bring back as
constantly its teachings -- its warnings -- its consolations."

"What now?" said Elizabeth.

"Many things. Look at those deep and overlapping shadows. 'As
the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so the Lord is round
about his people, from henceforth'" --

"Stop, Mr. Winthrop!" Elizabeth exclaimed; -- "Stop! I can't
bear it."

"Why?"

"I can't bear it," she repeated, in a passion of tears.

"Why?" said he again in the same tone, when a minute had gone
by.

"Those words don't belong to me -- I've nothing to do with
them," she said, raising her head and dashing her tears right
and left.

But Winthrop made no sort of answer to that, and a dead
silence fell between the parties. Again the prow of the sloop
was heard rippling against the waves; and slowly she glided
past mountain and shadow, and other hills rose and other deep
shadows lay before them. Elizabeth, between other thoughts,
was tempted to think that her companion was as impassive and
cold as the moonlight, and as moveless as the dark mountain
lines that stood against the sky. And yet she knew and trusted
him better than that. It was but the working of passing
impatience and bitter feeling; it was only the chafing of
passion against what seemed so self-contained and so calm. And
yet that very self-continence and calmness was what passion
liked, and what passion involuntarily bent down before.

She had not got over yet the stunned effect of the past days
and nights. She sat feeling coldly miserable and forlorn and
solitary; conscious that one interest was living at her heart
yet, but also conscious that it was to live and die by its own
strength as it might; and that in all the world she had
nothing else; no, nor never should have anything else. She
could not have a father again; and even he had been nothing
for the companionship of such a spirit as hers, not what she
wanted to make her either good or happy. But little as he had
done