k it is possible for one's wish
to lie down and die so?"

"If I had not seen it, I might say that it was not."

"I don't understand it --I don't know what to make of it," said
Elizabeth. "I don't think it is possible for mine."

Winthrop's thoughts went back a moment to the sweet calm brow,
the rested face, that told of its truth and possibility in one
instance.. He too did not understand it, but he guessed where
the secret might lie.

"It must be a very happy faculty," said Elizabeth; -- "but it
seems to me -- of course it is not so in that instance, -- but
in the abstract, it seems to me rather tame; -- I don't like
it. I have no idea of giving up!"

"There is no need of your giving up, in this case," said
Winthrop. "Do you see that sunshine?"

"And the rainbow!" said Elizabeth.

She sprang to the door; and they both stood looking, while the
parting gifts of the clouds were gently reaching the ground,
and the sun taking a cleared place in the western heaven,
painted over against them, broad and bright, the promissory
token that the earth should be overwhelmed with the waters no
more. The rain-drops glittered as they fell; the grass looked
up in refreshed green where the sun touched it; the clouds
were driving over from the west, leaving broken fragments
behind them upon the blue; and the bright and sweet colours of
the rainbow swept their circle in the east and almost finished
it in the grass at the door of the blacksmith's shop. It was a
lovely show of beauty that is as fresh the hundredth time as
the first. But though Elizabeth looked at it and admired it,
she was thinking of something else.

"You have no overshoes," said Winthrop, when they had set out
on their way; -- "I am afraid you are not countrywoman enough
to bear this."

"O yes I am," said Elizabeth, -- "I don't mind it -- I don't
care for it. But Mr. Winthrop --"

"What were you going to say?" he asked, when he had waited
half a minute to find out.

"You understood that I did not mean to speak of your mother,
when I said that, about thinking it seemed tame to let one's
wishes die out? -- I excepted her entirely in my thought -- I
was speaking quite in the abstract."

"I know that, Miss Elizabeth."

She was quite satisfied with the smile with which he said it.

"How much better that odd little black child liked you than
she did me," she went on with a change of subject and tone
together.

"You were a little further off," said Winthro