beth."

"Go yourself back into the house. I'll come when I am ready,
and I am not ready yet."

"He ha'n't had nothin' to eat to-day, I don't believe," said
Clam, by way of a parting argument. But Elizabeth let her go
without seeming to hear her.

She sat with her hands clasped round her knees, looking down
upon the water; her eyes slowly filling with proud and bitter
tears. Yet she saw and felt how coolly the lowering sunbeams
were touching the river now; that evening's sweet breath was
beginning to freshen up among the hills; that the daintiest,
lightest, cheeriest gilding was upon every mountain top, and
wavelet, and pebble, and stem of a tree. "Peace be to thee,
fair nature, and thy scenes!" -- and peace from them seems to
come too. But oh how to have it! Elizabeth clasped her hands
tight together and then wrung them mutely. "O mountains -- O
river -- O birds!" -- she thought, -- "If I could but be as
senseless as you -- or as good for something!"

CHAPTER XI.

When cockleshells turn silver bells,
When wine dreips red frae ilka tree,
When frost and snaw will warm us a',
Then I'll come doun an' dine wi' thee.
JEANNIE DOUGLASS.

The sun was low, near Wut-a-qut-o's brow, when at last slowly
and lingeringly, and with feet that, as it were, spurned each
step they made, Elizabeth took her way to the house. But no
sooner did her feet touch the doorstep than her listless and
sullen mood gave place to a fit of lively curiosity -- to see
what Winthrop had done. She turned to the left into the old
keeping-room.

It had been very bare in the morning. Now, it was stocked with
neat cane-bottomed chairs, of bird's-eye maple. In the middle
of the floor rested an ambitious little mahogany table with
claw feet. A stack of green window-blinds stood against the
pier between the windows, and at the bottom on the floor lay a
paper of screws and hinges. The floor was still bare, to be
sure, and so was the room, but yet it looked hopeful compared
with the morning's condition. Elizabeth stood opening her eyes
in a sort of mazed bewilderment; then hearing a little noise
of hammering in the other part of the house, she turned and
crossed over to the east room -- her sleeping-room of old and
now. She went within the door and stood fast.

Her feet were upon a green carpet which covered the room.
Round about were more of the maple chairs, looking quite
handsome on their green footing. There was a decent dressing-
table and