"Well, what's the right road out of it?"

"Break through everything in the way," said Rufus. "That seems
to be the method in favour."

"What do you think is the _right_ way?" Elizabeth repeated
without looking at the last speaker.

"If you set your face in the right quarter, there is always a
straight road out in that direction," Winthrop answered with a
little bit of a smile.

"Doesn't that come pretty near my rule?" said Elizabeth with a
smile much broader.

"I think not. If I understood, your rule was to make a
straight road out for yourself in any direction."

Elizabeth laughed and coloured a little, with no displeased
expression. The laugh subsided and her face became very grave
again as the gentlemen made their parting bows.

The brothers walked home in silence, till they had near
reached their own door.

"How easily you make a straight way for yourself anywhere!"
Rufus said suddenly and with half a breath of a sigh.

"What do you mean?" said Winthrop starting.

"You always did."

"What?"

"What you pleased."

"Well?" said Winthrop smiling.

"You may do it now. And will to the end of your life."

"Which seems to afford you somehow a gloomy prospect of
contemplation," said his brother.

"Well -- it does -- and it should."

"I should like to hear you state your premises and draw your
conclusion."

Rufus was silent and very sober for a little while. At last he
said,

"Your success and mine have always been very different, in
everything we undertook."

"Not in everything," said Winthrop.

"Well -- in almost everything."

"You say I do whatever I please. The difficulty with you
sometimes, Will, is that you do not 'please' hard enough."

"It would be difficult for anybody to rival you in that,"
Rufus said with a mingling of expression, half ironical and
half bitter. "You please so 'hard' that nobody else has a
chance."

To which Winthrop made no answer.

"I am not sorry for it, Governor," Rufus said just as they
reached their door, and with a very changed and quiet tone.

To which also Winthrop made no answer except by a look.

CHAPTER XXIV.

I watch thee from the quiet shore;
Thy spirit up to mine can reach;
But in dear words of human speech
We two communicate no more.
TENNYSON.

Mrs. Nettley was putting the finishing touches to her
breakfast -- that is, to her breakfast in prospect. A dish of
fish and the coffee-pot stood keeping each other cheerful on
one side th