in doing his pleasure?"

"Mamma -- I am not a Christian," he said hesitatingly and his
eye falling.

"And now you know what a Christian is. Till you can do this,
you do nothing. Till you are Christ's after this whole-hearted
fashion you are not mine as I wish to see you, -- you are not
mine for ever, -- my boy -- my dear Winthrop --" she said, again
putting her arm round him and bowing her face to his breast.

Did he ever forget the moment her head lay there? the moment
when his arms held the dearest earthly thing life ever had for
him? It was a quiet moment; she was not crying; no tears had
been dropped at all throughout their conversation; and when
she raised her face it was to kiss him quietly, -- but twice,
on his lips and on his cheek, -- and bid him good night. But
his soul was full of one meaning, as he shut his little
bedroom door, -- that that face should never be paler or more
care-worn for anything of his doing; -- that he would give up
anything, he would never go from home, sooner than grieve her
heart in a feather's weight; nay, that rather than grieve her,
he would _become a Christian_.

CHAPTER IV.

A lonely dwelling, where the shore
Is shadowed with rocks, and cypresses
Cleave with their dark green cones the silent skies,
And with their shadows the clear depths below.
SHELLEY.

The winter was a long one to the separated family. Quietly won
through, and busily. The father in the distant legislature;
the brother away at his studies; and the two or three lonely
people at home; -- each in his place was earnestly and
constantly at work. No doubt Mr. Landholm had more time to
play than the rest of them, and his business cares did not
press quite so heavily; for he wrote home of gay dinings-out,
and familiar intercourse with this and that member of the
Senate and Assembly, and hospitable houses that were open to
him in Vantassel, where he had pleasant friends and pleasant
times. But the home cares were upon him even then; he told how
he longed for the Session to be over, that he might be with
his family; he sent dear love to little Winifred and Asahel,
and postscripts of fatherly charges to Winthrop, recommending
to him particularly the care of the young cattle and to go on
dressing the flax. And Winthrop, through the long winter, had
taken care of the cattle and dressed the flax in the same
spirit with which he shut his bedroom door that night; a
little calmer, not a whit the less strong.