you do this for me."

She looked up and gave him one of her grave clear glances, and
said,

"_Will_ you deserve it, Will?"

He stood with full eyes and hushed tongue by her table, for
the space of five minutes. Then spoke with a change of tone.

"Well, I'm going down to help Winthrop catch some fish for
supper; and you sha'n't cook 'em, mamma, nor Karen neither.
Karen's cooking is not perfection. By the by, there's one
thing more I do want, -- and confoundedly too, -- a pair of
boots; -- I really don't know how to do without them."

"Boots?" -- said his mother, in an accent that sounded a little
dismayful.

"Yes. -- I can get capital ones at Asphodel -- really stylish
ones -- for five dollars; -- boots that would last me handsome a
great while; and that's a third less than I should have to
give anywhere else, -- for such boots. You see I shall want
them at Little River -- I shall be thrown more in the way of
seeing people -- there's a great deal of society there. I don't
see that I can get along without them."

His mother was going on with her ironing.

"I don't know," she said, as her iron made passes up and down,
-- "I don't know whether you can have them or not."

"I know," said Winthrop. "But I don't see the sense of getting
them at Asphodel."

"Because I tell you they are two dollars and a half cheaper."

"And how much more will it cost you to go round by the way of
Asphodel than to go straight to Little River?"

"I don't know," said the other, half careless, half
displeased; -- "I really haven't calculated."

"Well, if you can get them for five dollars," said Winthrop,
"you shall have them. I can lend you so much as that."

"How did you come by it?" said his brother looking at him
curiously.

"I didn't come by it at all."

"Where did it come from?"

"Made it."

"How?"

"What do you want to know for? I beat it out of some raw
flax."

"And carried it over the mountain, through the snow, winter
nights," added his mother.

"You didn't know you were doing it for me," Rufus said
laughing as he took the money his brother handed him. But it
was a laugh assumed to hide some feeling. "Well, it shall get
back to you again somehow, Winthrop. Come -- are we ready for
this piscatory excursion?"

"For what?" said his mother.

"A Latin word, my dear mother, which I lately picked up
somewhere."

"Why not use English?" said his mother.

A general little laugh, to which many an unexpressed thou