Susan Warner - Hills of the Shatemuc

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"My pleasantest thoughts are of you. Herder is as good as he
can be, and you are his favourite; you will presently have the
best literary society, through his means. You don't speak of
Haye. Don't you go there? You had better, Winthrop; -- you may
find a short cut to the top of Fortune's wheel through the
front door of his house. At any rate, there are two very
pretty girls there and a number of other pleasant things, with
which you will do well to make yourself acquainted, come
thereafter what may. I wrote to them at home a week or two
ago.

W. Landholm.

"P. S. Isn't Inchbald a good fellow?"

The next post went out with the answer.

"To William Landholm, Esq., North Lyttleton, Sassafras Co.

"My dear Rufus,

"Stick to your choice. Go West, and do _not_ come here. Do not
be discouraged by the fact of making money. And don't try to
turn Fortune's wheel by force, for it will break your arms.

"Yours ever,

"Winthrop Landholm."

Winthrop did not tell them at home that he was giving lessons
in the classics several hours daily, in order to live while he
was carrying on his own studies; nor that, to keep the burden
of his kind hosts, as well as his own burden, from growing any
heavier, he had refused to eat with them; and was keeping
himself in the most frugal manner, partly by the help of a
chop-house, and partly by the countenance and support of a
very humble little tin coffee-pot and saucepan in his own
attic at home. Mr. Haye's front door he had never entered, and
was more than indifferent where or what it led to.

"Why for do you not come to your friend, Mr. Haye, ever?" said
Mr. Herder to him one day.

"I am short of time, Mr. Herder."

"Time! -- But you come to see me?"

"I have time for that."

"I am glad of it," said the naturalist, "for there is no
person I like to see better come into my room; but ozer people
would like to see you come in too."

"I am not sure of that, Mr. Herder."

"I am sure," said his friend looking kindly at him. "You are
working too much."

"I can't do that, sir."

"Come wiz me to Mr. Haye to-night!"

"No sir, thank you."

"What for do you say that?"

"Because it is kind in you to ask me," said Winthrop smiling.

"You will not let nobody be of no use to you," said the
naturalist.

Winthrop replied by a question about a new specimen; and the
whole world of animate nature was presently buried in the
bowels of the earth, or in the depths of philosophy, which
comes to about the same thing.

But it fell out that same day that Winthrop, going into the
chop-house to fit himself for hard work with a somewhat better
dinner than usual, planted himself just opposite a table which
five minutes after was taken by Mr. Haye. It happened then
that after the usual solitary and selfish wont of such places,
the meals were near over before either of the gentlemen found
out he had ever seen the other. But in the course of Mr.
Haye's second glass of wine, his eye took a satisfied fit of
roving over the company; and presently discovered something it
had seen before in the figure and face opposite to him and in
the eye which was somewhat carelessly running over the columns
of a newspaper. Glass in hand Mr. Haye rose, and the next
instant Winthrop felt a hand on his shoulder.

"Mr. Landholm -- isn't it? I thought so. Why, I've been on the
point of coming to look after you this last fortnight past,
Mr. Landholm, but business held me so tight by the button --
I'm very glad to meet you -- Will you join me? --"

"Thank you, sir -- I must not; for business holds me by the
hand at this moment."

"A glass of wine?"

"Thank you sir, again."

"You will not?"

"No, sir. I have no acquaintance in that quarter, and do not
wish to be introduced."

"But my dear Mr. Landholm! -- are you serious?"

"Always, sir."

"Most extraordinary! -- But can't you be persuaded? I think you
are wrong."

"I must abide the consequences, I am afraid."

"Well, stay! -- Will you come to my house to-night and let me
give you some other introductions?"

"I cannot refuse that, sir."

"Then come up to tea. How's your father? --"

So Winthrop was in for it, and went about his afternoon
business with the feeling that none would be done in the
evening. Which did not make him more diligent, because it
could not.

Mr. Haye's house was near the lower end of the Parade, and one
of the best in the city. It was a very handsome room in which
Winthrop found the family; as luxuriously fitted up as the
fashion of those times permitted; and the little group
gathered there did certainly look as if all the business of
the world was done without them, and a good part of it _for_
them; so undoubtedly easy and comfortable was the flow of
their laces and the sweep of their silk gowns; so questionless
of toil or endurance was the position of each little figure
upon soft cushions, and the play of pretty fingers with
delicate do-nothing bobbins and thread. Rose was literally
playing with hers, for the true business of the hour seemed to
be a gentleman who sat at her feet on an ottoman, and who was
introduced to Winthrop as Mr. Satterthwaite. Elizabeth
according to her fashion sat a little apart and seemed to be
earnestly intent upon some sort of fine net manufacture. They
three were all.

Winthrop's reception was after the former manner; from Rose
extremely and sweetly free and cordial; from Elizabeth grave
and matter-of-fact. She went back to her net-work; and Rose
presently found Mr. Satterthwaite very interesting again, and
went back to him, so far as looks and talk were concerned.
Winthrop could but conclude that he was not interesting, for
neither of the ladies certainly found him so. He had an
excellent chance to make up his mind about the whole party;
for none of them gave him any thing else to do with it.

Rose was a piece of loveliness, to the eye, such as one would
not see in many a summer day; with all the sweet flush of
youth and health she was not ill-named. Fresh as a rose,
fresh-coloured, bright, blooming; sweet too, one would say,
for a very pretty smile seemed ever at home on the lips; -- to
see her but once, she would be noted and remembered as a most
rare picture of humanity. But Winthrop had seen her more than
once. His eye passed on.

Her cousin had changed for the better; though it might be only
the change which years make in a girl at that age, rather than
any real difference of character. She had grown handsomer. The
cheek was well rounded out now, and had a clear healthy tinge,
though not at all Rose's white and red. Elizabeth's colour
only came when there was a call for it and then it came
promptly. And she was not very apt to smile; when she did, it
was more often with a careless or scornful turn, or full and
bright with a sense of the ludicrous; never a loving or
benevolent smile, such as those that constantly graced Rose's
pretty lip. Her mouth kept its old cut of grave independence,
Winthrop saw at a glance; and her eye, when by chance she
lifted it and it met his, was the very same mixture of
coolness and fire that it had been of old; the fire for
herself, the coolness for all the rest of the world.

She looked down again at her netting immediately, but the look
had probably reminded her that nobody in her father's house
was playing the hostess at the moment. A disagreeable reminder
it is likely, for she worked away at her netting more
vigorously than ever, and it was two or three minutes before
her eyes left it again to take note of what Rose and Mr.
Satterthwaite were thinking about. Her look amused Winthrop,
it was so plain an expression of impatient indignation that
they did not do what they left her to do. But seeing they were
a hopeless case, after another minute or two of pulling at her
netting, she changed her seat for one on his side of the room.
Winthrop gave her no help, and she followed up her duty move
with a duty commonplace.

"How do you like Mannahatta, Mr. Landholm?"

"I have hardly asked myself the question, Miss Haye."

"Does that mean you don't know?"

"I cannot say that. I like it as a place of business."

"And not as a place of pleasure?"

"No. Except in so far as the pushing on of business may be
pleasure."

"You are drawing a distinction in one breath which you
confound in the next," said Elizabeth.

"I didn't know that you would detect it," he said with a half
smile.

"Detect what?"

"The distinction between business and pleasure."

"Do you think I don't know the difference?"

"You cannot know the difference, without knowing the things to
be compared."

"The things to be compared! --" said she, with a good look at
him out of her dark eyes. "And which of them do you think I
don't know?"

"I supposed you were too busy to have much time for pleasure,"
he said quietly.

"It is possible to be busy in more ways than one," said
Elizabeth, after a minute of not knowing how to take him up.

"That is just what I was thinking."

"What are _you_ busy about, Mr. Landholm, in this place of
business?"

"I am only learning my trade," he answered.

"A trade! -- May I ask what?" she said, with another surprised
and inquisitive look.

"A sort of cobbling trade, Miss Elizabeth -- the trade of the
law."

"What does the law cobble?"

"People's name and estate."

"_Cobble?_" said Elizabeth. "What is the meaning of 'cobble?'"

"I don't recollect," said Winthrop. "What meaning do you give
it, Miss Haye?"

"I thought it was a poor kind of mending."

"I am afraid there is some of that work done in the
profession," said Winthrop smiling. "Occasionally. But it is
the profession and not the law that is chargeable, for the
most part."

"I wouldn't be a lawyer if that were not so," said Elizabeth.
"I wouldn't be a _cobbler_ of anything."

"To be anything else might depend on a person's faculties."

"I don't care," said Elizabeth, -- "I _would_ not be. If I could
not mend, I would let alone. I wouldn't cobble."

"What if one could neither mend nor let alone?"

"One would have less power over himself than I have, or than
you have, Mr. Landholm."

"One thing at least doesn't need cobbling," he said with a
smile.

"I never heard such a belittling character of the profession,"
she went on. "Your mother would have given it a very different
one, Mr. Landholm. She would have told you, 'Open thy mouth,
judge' -- what is it? -- 'and plead the cause of the poor.'"

Whether it were the unexpected bringing up of his mother's
name, or the remembrance of her spirit, something procured
Miss Elizabeth a quick little bright smile of answer, very
different from anything she had had from Winthrop before. So
different, that her eyes went down to her work for several
minutes, and she forgot everything else in a sort of wonder at
the change and at the beauty of expression his face could put
on.

"I didn't find those words myself," she added presently; -- "a
foolish man was shewing me the other day what he said was my
verse in some chapter of Proverbs; and it happened to be
that."

But Winthrop's answer went to something in her former speech,
for it was made with a little breath of a sigh.

"I think Wut-a-qut-o is a pleasanter place than this, Miss
Haye."

"O, so do I! -- at least -- I don't know that it signifies much
to me what sort of a place I am in. If I can only have the
things I want around me, I don't think I care much."

"How many things do you want to be comfortable?"

"O, -- books, -- and the conveniences of life; and one or two
friends that one cares about."

"Cut off two of those preliminaries, -- and which one would you
keep for comfort, Miss Elizabeth?"

"Couldn't do without either of 'em. What's become of my Merry-
go-round, Mr. Winthrop?"

"It lies in the upper loft of the barn, with all the seams
open."

"Why?"

"You remember, nobody was to use it but me."

A curious recollection of the time when it was given and of
the feeling, half condescending, half haughty, with which it
had been given, came over Elizabeth; and for a moment or two
she was a little confused. Whether Winthrop recollected it too
or whether he had a mischievous mind that she should, he said
presently,

"And what's become of your horse, Miss Elizabeth?"

"He's very well," she said. "At least -- I don't know I am sure
how he is, for he is up in the country."

Winthrop rose at the instant to greet Mr. Herder, and
Elizabeth did not know whether the smile on his lips was for
him or at her.

"Ah! Wint'rop," said the new-comer, "how do you do! I thought
you would not come here wiz me this morning?"

"I thought not too, sir."

"How did you come? Miss Elisabet' did make you."

"Miss Elizabeth's father."

"He is a strange man, Miss Elisabet'! -- he would not come for
me -- I could not bring him -- neizer for de love of me, nor for
de love of you, nor for love of himself. He does like to have
his way. And now he is here -- I do not know what for; but I am
very glad to see him."

He walked Winthrop off.

"He _is_ a strange man," thought Elizabeth; -- "he don't seem to
care in the least what he ever did or may do; he would just as
lief remind me of it as not. It is very odd that he shouldn't
want to come here, too."

She sat still and worked alone. When Mr. Haye by and by came
in, he joined Winthrop and Mr. Herder, and they three formed a
group which even the serving of tea and coffee did not break
up. Elizabeth's eye glanced over now and then towards the
interested heads of the talkers, and then at Rose and Mr.
Satterthwaite, who on the other side were also enough for each
other's contentment and seemed to care for no interruption.
Elizabeth interrupted nobody.

But so soon as awhile after tea Mr. Satterthwaite left the
company, Rose tripped across to the other group and placed her
pretty person over against the naturalist and his young
friend.

"Mr. Herder, you are taking up all of Mr. Landholm -- I haven't
seen him or spoken to him the whole evening."

"Dere he is, Miss Rose," said the naturalist. "Do what you
like wiz him."

"But you don't give a chance. Mr. Landholm, are you as great a
favourite with everybody as you are with Mr. Herder?"

"Everybody does not monopolize me, Miss Cadwallader."

"I wished so much you would come over our side -- I wanted to
make you acquainted with Mr. Satterthwaite."

Winthrop bowed, and Mr. Haye remarked that Mr. Satterthwaite
was not much to be acquainted with.

"No, but still -- he's very pleasant," Rose said. "And how is
everything up at your lovely place, Mr. Landholm?"

"Cold, at present, Miss Cadwallader."

"O yes, of course; but then I should think it would be lovely
at all times. Isn't it a beautiful place, Mr. Herder?"

"Which place, Miss Rose?"

"Why, Mr. Landholm's place, up the river, where we were that
summer. And how's your mother, Mr. Landholm, and your sister?
-- so kind Mrs. Landholm is! And have you left them entirely,
Mr. Landholm?"

"I have brought all of myself away that I could," he said with
a smile.

"Don't you wish yourself back there every day?"

"No."

"Don't you! I should think you would. How's your brother, Mr.
Landholm, and where is he?"

"He is well, and in the North yet."

"Is he coming back to Mannahatta soon?"

"I have no reason to think so."

"I wish he would. I want to see him again. He is such good
company."

"Mr. Wint'rop will do so well, Miss Rose," said the
naturalist.

"I dare say he will," said Rose with a very sweet face.

"He won't if he goes on as he has begun," said Mr. Haye. "I
asked him to dine here the day after to-morrow, Rose."

"He'll come? --"

But Mr. Landholm's face said no, and said it with a cool
certainty.

"Why, Mr. Landholm! --"

"He is very -- you cannot do nozing wiz him, Miss Rose," said
the naturalist. "Miss Elisabet'! --"

"Well, Mr. Herder?"

"I wish you would come over here and see what you can do."

"About what, Mr. Herder?"

"Wiz Mr. Wint'rop here."

"I just heard you say that nobody can do anything with him,
Mr. Herder."

"Here he has refuse to come to dinner wiz all of us."

"If he can't come for his own pleasure, I don't suppose he
would come for anybody else's," said Elizabeth.

She left her solitary chair however, and came up and stood
behind Mr. Herder.

"He pleads business," said Mr. Haye.

"Miss Elisabet', we want your help," said Mr. Herder. "He is
working too hard."

"I am not supposed to know what that means, sir."

"What?" said Mr. Haye.

"Working too hard."

"Work!" said Mr. Haye. "What do you know about work?"

"The personal experience of a life-time, sir," said Winthrop
gravely. "Not much of the theory, but a good deal of the
practice."

"I'll bear her witness of one thing," said Mr. Haye; "if she
can't work herself, she can make work for other people."

"You've got it, Lizzie," said her cousin, clapping her hands.

"I don't take it," said Elizabeth. "For whom do I make work,
father?"

"For me, or whoever has the care of you."

Elizabeth's cheek burned now, and her eye too, with a fire
which she strove to keep under.

"It's not fair!" she exclaimed. "If I make work for you, I am
sure it is work that nobody takes up."

"That's true," said her father laughing, -- "it would be too
much trouble to pretend to take it all up."

"Then you shouldn't _bring_ it up!" said Elizabeth, trembling.

"It's nothing very bad to bring up," said her father. "It's
only a little extra strong machinery that wants a good
engineer."

"That's no fault in the machinery, sir," said Winthrop.

"And all you have to do," suggested Mr. Herder, "is to find a
good engineer."

"I am my own engineer!" said Elizabeth, a little soothed by
the first remark and made desperate by the second.

"So you are!" said her cousin. "There's no doubt of that."

"Are you a good one, Miss Elisabet'?" said the naturalist,
smiling at her.

"You must presume not! -- after what you have heard," she
answered with abundant haughtiness.

"It is one mark of a good engineer to be a match for his
machinery," said Winthrop quietly.

It was said so coolly and simply that Elizabeth did not take
offence. She stood, rather cooled down and thoughtful, still
at the back of Mr. Herder's chair. Winthrop rose to take
leave, and Mr. Haye repeated his invitation.

"I will venture so far as to say I will come if I can, sir."

"I shall expect you," said the other, shaking his hand
cordially.

Mr. Herder went with his friend. Mr. Haye soon himself
followed, leaving the two ladies alone. Both sat down in
silence at the table; Elizabeth with a book, Miss Cadwallader
with her fancy work; but neither of them seemed very intent on
what she was about. The work went on lazily, and the leaves of
the book were not turned over.

"I wish I was Winthrop Landholm," said Rose at length.

"Why?" -- said her cousin, after a sufficient time had marked
her utter carelessness of what the meaning might have been.

"I should have such a good chance."

"Of what?" -- said Elizabeth dryly enough.

"Of a certain lady's favour, whose favour is not very easy to
gain."

"You don't care much for my favour," said Elizabeth.

"I should, if I were Winthrop Landholm."

"If you were he, you wouldn't get it, any more than you have
now."

"O no. I mean, I wish I were he and not myself, you know."

"You must think well enough of him. I am sure no possible
inducement could make me wish myself Mr. Satterthwaite, for a
moment."

"I don't care for Mr. Satterthwaite," said Rose coolly. "But
how Mr. Haye takes to him, don't he?"

"To whom?"

"Winthrop Landholm."

"I don't see how he shews it."

"Why, the way he was asking him to dinner."

"It is nothing very uncommon for Mr. Haye to ask people to
dinner."

"No, but such a person."

"What 'such a person'?"

"O, a farmer's boy. Mr. Haye wouldn't have done it once. But
that's the way he always comes round to people when they get
up in the world."

"This one hasn't got much up in the world yet."

"He is going to, you know. Mr. Herder says so; and President
Darcy says there are not two such young men seen in half a
century as he and his brother."

Elizabeth laid down her book and looked over at her companion,
with an eye the other just met and turned away from.

"Rose, -- how _dare_ you talk to me so!"

"So how?" said the other, pouting and reddening, but without
lifting her face from her work.

"You know, -- about my father. No matter what he does, if it
were the worst thing in the world, your lips have no business
to mention it to my ears."

"I wasn't saying anything _bad_," said Rose.

"Your notions of bad and good, and honourable and
dishonourable, are very different from mine! If he did as you
say, I should be bitterly ashamed."

"I don't see why."

"I will not have such things _spoken_ of to me, -- Rose, do you
understand? What my father does, no human being has a right to
comment upon to me; and none shall!"

"You think you may talk as you like to _me_," said Rose, between
pouting and crying. "I was only laughing."

"Laugh about something else."

"I wish Winthrop Landholm had been here."

"Why?"

"He'd have given you another speech about engineering."

Elizabeth took her candle and book and marched out of the
room.

CHAPTER XVIII.

One man has one way of talking, and another man has another,
that's all the difference between them.
GOOD-NATURED MAN.

Winthrop found he could go. So according to his promise he
dressed himself, and was looking out a pockethandkerchief from
the small store in his trunk, when the door opened.

"Rufus! --"

"Ah! -- you didn't expect to see me, did you?" said that
gentleman, taking off his hat and coming in and closing the
door with a face of great life and glee. -- "Here I am,
Governor!"

"What brought you here?" said his brother shaking his hand.

"What brought me here? -- why, the stage-coach, to be sure;
except five miles, that I rode on horseback. What should bring
me?"

"Something of the nature of a centrifugal force, I should
judge."

"Centrifugal! -- _You_ are my centre, Governor, -- don't you know
that? I tend to you as naturally as the poor earth does to the
sun. That's why I am here -- I couldn't keep at a distance any
longer."

"My dear sir, at that rate you are running to destruction."

"No, no," said Rufus laughing, -- "there's a certain degree of
license in our moral planetary system -- I'm going away again
as soon as I am rightly refreshed with the communication of
your light and warmth."

"Well," said Winthrop untying his neckcloth, "it would seem
but courtesy in the sun to stand still to receive his visitor
-- I'm very glad to see you, Will."

"What's the matter?"

"The sun was going out to dinner -- that's all, -- but you are a
sufficient excuse for me."

"Going to dinner? -- where?"

"No. 11, on the Parade."

"No. 11? -- Mr. Haye's? were you? I'll go too. I won't hinder
you."

"I am not sorry to be hindered," said Winthrop.

"But I am! -- at least, I should be. We'll both go. How soon,
Governor?"

"Presently."

"I'll be ready," said Rufus, -- "here's my valise -- but my
shirt ruffles, I fear, are in a state of impoverished
elegance. -- I speak not in respect of one or two holes, of
which they are the worse, -- but solely in reference to the
coercive power of narrow circumstances -- which nobody knows
anything of that hasn't experienced it," said Rufus, looking
up from his valise to his brother with an expression half
earnest, half comical.

"You are not suffering under it at this moment," said
Winthrop.

"Yes I am -- in the form of my frills. Look there! -- I'll tell
you what I'll do -- I'll invoke the charities of my good
friend, Mrs. Nettley. Is she down stairs? -- I'll be back in a
moment, Winthrop."

Down stairs, shirt in hand, went Rufus, and tapped at Mrs.
Nettley's door. That is, the door of the room where she
usually lived, a sort of better class kitchen, which held the
place of what in houses of more pretension is called the 'back
parlour.' Mrs. Nettley's own hand opened the door at his tap.

She was a strong contrast to her brother, with her rather
small person and a face all the lines of which were like a
cobweb set to catch every care that was flying; but woven by
no malevolent spider; it was a very nest of kindliness and
good-will.

"How d'ye do, Mrs. Nettley," said Rufus softly.

"Why, Mr. Landholm! -- are you there? Come in -- how good it is
to see you again! but I didn't expect it."

"Didn't expect to see me again?"

"No -- O yes, of course, Mr. William," said Mrs. Nettley
laughing, -- "I expected to see you again; but not now -- I
didn't expect to see you when I opened the door."

"I had the advantage, for I did expect to see you."

"How do you do, Mr. Landholm?"

"Why, as well as a man can do, in want of a shirt," said Rufus
comically.

"Mr. Landholm? --"

"You see, Mrs. Nettley," Rufus went on, "I have come all the
way from North Lyttleton to dine with a friend and my brother
here; and now I am come, I find that without your good offices
I haven't a ruffle to ruffle myself withal; or in other words,
I am afraid people would think I had packed myself bodily into
my valise, and thereby conclude I was a smaller affair than
they had thought me."

"Mr. Landholm! -- how you do talk! --but can I do anything?"