rop looked up and smiled and said, "What would you have?"

"Your approbation!" -- was the strong and somewhat bitter
thought in Rufus's mind. He paused before he spoke.

"But Governor, really I am tired of this life -- it isn't what
I am fit for; -- and why not escape from it, if I can, by some
agreeable road that will do nobody any harm?"

"With all my heart," said Winthrop. "I'll help you."

"Well? --"

"Well --"

"You think this is not such a one?"

"The first step in it being a stumble."

"To whom would it bring harm, Governor?"

"The head must lower when the foot stumbles," said Winthrop.
"That is one harm."

"But you are begging the question!" said Rufus a little
impatiently.

"And you have granted it."

"I haven't!" said Rufus. "I don't see it. I don't see the
stumbling or the lowering. I should not feel myself lowered by
marrying a fine woman, and I hope she would not feel her own
self-respect injured by marrying me."

"You will not stand so high upon her money-bags as upon your
own feet."

"Why not have the advantage of both?"

"You cannot. People always sit down upon money-bags. The only
exception is in the case of money-bags they have filled
themselves."

Rufus looked at Winthrop's book for three minutes in silence.

"Well, why not then take at once the ease, for which the
alternative is a long striving?"

"If you can. But the long striving is not the whole of the
alternative; with that you lose the fruits of the striving --
all that makes ease worth having."

"But I should not relinquish them," said Rufus. "I shall not
sit down upon my money-bags."

"They are not _your_ money-bags."

"They will be -- if I prove successful."

"And how will you prove successful?"

"Why!" -- said Rufus, -- "what a question! --"

"I wish you would answer it nevertheless -- not to me, but to
yourself."

Whether Rufus did or not, the answer never came out. He paced
the floor again; several times made ready to speak, and then
checked himself.

"So you are entirely against me, --" he said at length.

"I am not against you, Will; -- I am _for_ you."

"You don't approve of my plan."

"No --I do not."

"I wish you would say why."

"I hardly need," said Winthrop with a smile. "You have said it
all to yourself."

"Notwithstanding which assumption, I should like to hear you
say it."

"For the greater ease of attack and defence?"

"If you please. For anything."

"What do you want me to d