“It isn’t as pretty a time of day as when I went out this morning,” she said, forcing herself to say something.

But Winthrop seemed in a state of pre-occupation too; till they reached a boulder capped with green ferns.

“Now give me your hand,” said he.  “Can you climb?”

They turned short by the boulder and began to mount the steep rugged hill-path, down which he had once carried his little sister.  Elizabeth could make better footing than poor Winifred; and very soon they stood on the old height from which they could see the fair Shatemuc coming down between the hills and sweeping round their own little woody Shahweetah and off to the South Bend.  The sun was bright on all the land now, though the cedars shielded the bit of hill-top well; and Wut-a-qut-o looked down upon them in all his gay Autumn attire.  The sun was bright, but the air was clear and soft and free from mist and cloud and obscurity, as no sky is but October’s.

“Sit down,” said Winthrop, throwing himself on the bank which was carpeted with very short green grass.

“I would just as lieve stand,” said Elizabeth.

“I wouldn’t as lieve have you.  You’ve been on your feet long enough to-day.  Come! —­”

She yielded to the gentle pulling of her hand, and sat down on the grass; half amused and half fretted; wondering what he was going to say next.  Winthrop was silent for a little space; and Elizabeth sat looking straight before her, or rather with her head a little turned to the right, from her companion, towards Wut-a-qut-o; the deep sides of her sun-bonnet shutting out all but a little framed picture of the gay woody foreground, a bit of the blue river, and the mountain’s yellow side.

“How beautiful it was all down there, three or four hours ago,” said Elizabeth.

“I didn’t know you had so much romance in your disposition —­ to go there this morning to meet me.”

“I didn’t go there to meet you.”

“Yes you did.”

“I didn’t!” said Elizabeth.  “I never thought of such a thing as meeting you.”

“Nevertheless, in the regular chain and sequence of events, you went there to meet me —­ if you hadn’t gone you wouldn’t have met me.”

“O, if you put it in that way,” said Elizabeth, —­ “there’s no harm in that.”

“There is no harm in it at all.  Quite the contrary.”

“I think it was the prettiest walk I ever took in my life,” said Elizabeth, —­ “before that, I mean,” she added blushing.

“My experience would say, after it,” said Winthrop, in an amused tone.

“It was rather a confused walk after that,” said Elizabeth.  “I never was quite so much surprised.”

“You see I had not that disadvantage.  I was only —­ gratified.”

“Why,” said Elizabeth, her jealous fear instantly starting again, “you didn’t know what my answer would be before you asked me?”

She waited for Winthrop’s answer, but none came.  Elizabeth could not bear it.