ything,"
said Winthrop.

"Hum! -- I guess there aint much money made by the law," said
Mr. Forriner taking a pinch of snuff. "It's a good trade to
starve by. How long have you to study?"

"All the time I have to live, sir."

"Eh? -- and how do you expect to live in the meantime?"

"I shall manage to live as long as I study."

"Well I hope you will -- I hope you will," said Mr. Forriner.
"You'll come in and take breakfast with us?"

"If you will allow me, sir."

"You haven't had breakfast yet?"

"No sir, nor supper."

"Well, I guess wife's got enough for you. If that's your box
you'd better get the man to help you in with it. You can set
it down here behind the door."

"Is it the right place, sir?" inquired Michael as Winthrop
came out to him.

"No" said Winthrop. "But you may help me in with the trunk."

Michael was satisfied that he had the right money, and
departed; and Winthrop followed Mr. Forriner through a narrow
entry cut off from the store, to a little back room, which was
the first of the domestic premises. Here stood a table, and
Mrs. Forriner; a hard-featured lady, in a muslin cap likewise
hard-featured; there was a "not-give-in" look, very marked, in
both, cap and lady. A look that Winthrop recognized at once,
and which her husband seemed to have recognized a great while.

"Mrs. Forriner!" said that gentleman to his nephew. "My dear,
this is Cousin Winthrop Landholm -- Orphah's son."

"How do you do, sir?" said Mrs. Forriner's eyes and cap; her
tongue moved not.

"Just come in town," pursued her husband; "and has come to
take breakfast with us."

"Have you come in to stay, cousin? or are you going back again
to the North?"

"I am not going back at present -- I am going to stay," said
Winthrop.

The lady was standing up, waiting the instant arrival of
breakfast, or not enough at ease in her mind to sit down. The
table and room and furniture, though plain enough and even
mean in their character, had notwithstanding a sufficient look
of homely comfort.

"You didn't like it up there where you were?" she went on,
changing the places of things on the table with a dissatisfied
air.

"Up where, ma'am?"

"O this is not Rufus, -- this is Winthrop, my dear," said Mr.
Forriner. "Cousin Winthrop has just come down from -- I forget
-- from home. What does brother Landholm call his place,
cousin?"

"We sometimes call it after our mountain, 'Wut-a-qut-o.'"

How sweet the syllables seemed