t his
common grave look; to Winnie there was the slight shadow of
something which seemed to say the "pulling down" had not to be
waited for. So slight that she could hardly tell it was there,
yet so shadowy she was sure it had come from something. It was
not in the look merely -- it was in the air, -- it was, she did
not know what, but she felt it and it made her miserable. She
could not see it after the first minute; his face and
shoulders, as he sat reading his papers, had their usual calm
stability; Winnie lay looking at him, outwardly calm too, but
mentally tossing and turning.

She could not bear it. She crawled off her couch and came and
sat down at his feet, throwing her arms around his knee and
looking up at him.

"Dear Governor! -- I wish you had whatever would do you good!"

"The skill of decyphering would do me a little good just now,"
said her brother. She could detect nothing peculiar in look or
word, though Winnie's eyes did their best.

"But somehow I don't feel as if you had," she went on to say.

"Where is your faith?" -- he said quietly, as he made a note in
the margin of the paper he was reading. Winnie could make
nothing of him.

"Governor, when shall we go?"

"Hildebrand moves his sloop off to-morrow afternoon."

"And shall we go to-morrow?"

"If you don't object."

Winnie left the floor, clapping her hands together, and went
back to her couch to think over at large the various
preparations which she must make. Which pleasant business held
her all the evening.

They were not large preparations, however; longer to think of
than to do; especially as Winthrop took upon himself the most
of what was done. One or two nick-nackeries of preparation, in
the shape of a new basket, a new book, and a new shawl, seemed
delightful to Winnie; though she did not immediately see what
she might want of the latter in August.

"We shall find it cooler when we get under the shadow of Wut-
a-qut-o, Winnie," said her brother; and Winnie was only too
glad of a pretext to take the pretty warm wrapper of grey and
blue worsted along.

She did not want it when they set out, the next afternoon. It
was very warm in the streets, very warm on the quays; and even
when the sloop pushed her way slowly out and left the quays at
her back, there was little air stirring and the August sun
beat down steadily on river and shore.

"This don't look much like gettin' up to Cowslip's Mill _this_
night," said the skipper.