aid Rufus gravely, "have you any _particular_
reason to decline doing this business for me?"

Winthrop hesitated slightly, and then came forth one of those
same "no's," that Winnie knew by heart.

"Have you any particular reason to dislike it?"

"Yes. They were my friends once."

"But is your friendship for them stronger than for anybody
else?"

"It does not stand in the way of my duty to you, Will."

"Your _duty_ to me, --" said the other.

"Yes. I cannot in this instance call it pleasure."

It was the turn of Rufus to hesitate; for the face of his
brother expressed an absence of pleasure that to him, in the
circumstances, was remarkable.

"Then you do not refuse to undertake this job for me?"

"I will do what I can," said Winthrop, working at a large
forestick on the fire. How Winnie wished he would let it
alone, and place himself so that she could see him.

"And don't you think there is good prospect of our
succeeding?"

"If Chancery don't give it you, I'll take it to the Court of
Errors," said Winthrop, arranging the log to his satisfaction,
and then putting the rest of the fire in order.

"I'm sorry to give you trouble, Governor," his brother said
thoughtfully.

"I'm sorry you've got it to give, Will."

But Rufus went on looking into the fire, and seeming to get
deeper into the depths of something less bright as he looked.

"After all I am much the most to be pitied," he began. "I
thought to-day, Governor -- I did not know what would become of
me!"

"I can tell you that beforehand," said his brother. "You will
become, exactly, what you choose to make yourself."

"That is what you always say," returned Rufus a little
cynically.

"That is what I have found in my own practice," said Winthrop.
He put up the tongs and took his old seat by Winnie. Rufus
looked still into the fire.

"I am thrown out of this employment now," he said; -- "I am
disgusted with it -- and if I were not, there is no way for me
to follow it with advantage."

"I am not sorry for that, Will. I never liked it for you, nor
you for it."

"I have nothing to do. -- I am a loose pin in the Mosaic of
society -- the pattern is all made up without me."

"What pin has got your place?" said Winthrop.

"What do you mean?"

"Simply, that as in the nature of things there cannot be too
many pins, a pin that is out of place must be such by a
derelict of duty."

"What is my place?"

"If my word would set you in it, I would t