It was early of a cold spring day, the ground white with a flurry of snow, the air raw, when he brought Winnie from the steamboat and led her, half frightened, half glad, through the streets to her new home.  Winnie’s tongue was very still, her eyes very busy.  Her brother left the eyes to make their own notes and comments, at least he made none, till they had reached the corner of Little South St. He made none then; the door was opened softly, and he brought her up the stairs and into his room without disturbing or falling in with anybody.  Putting her on a calico-covered settee, Winthrop pulled off his coat and set about making a fire.

Winnie had cried all the day before and as much of the night as her poor eyelids could keep awake; and now in a kind of lull, sat watching him.

“Governor, you’ll catch cold —­”

“Not if I can make the fire catch,” said he quietly.

“But you wanted me to keep on my things.”

“Did you want to take them off?”

Winnie sat silent again, shrugging her shoulders to the chill air.  But presently the fire caught, and the premonitory snapping and crackling of the kindling wood gave notice of a sudden change of temperature.  Winnie’s feelings took the cheery influence of the promise and she began to talk in a more hearty strain.

“Is this your room, Winthrop?”

“This is my room, Winnie.  Yours is there, next to it.”

“Through that door?”

“No —­ through the entry; —­ that is the door of my storehouse.”

Winnie got up to look at it.

“’Tisn’t a very large storehouse,” was her conclusion.

“And not much in it.  But the large storehouses are not far off, Winnie.  Shall I leave you here for five minutes, while I go to get something from one of them?”

“Do you mean out of doors? —­ from the shops?”

“Yes.  Shall I leave you five minutes?”

“O yes!”

He had come before her and was holding both her hands.  Before he let them go he stooped down and kissed her.

It was not a very common thing for Winthrop to kiss her; and Winnie sat quieted under the power and the pleasure of it till the five minutes were run out and he had got back again.  His going and coming was without seeing any one of the house; a fact owing to Mrs. Nettley’s being away to market and Mr. Inchbald out on another errand.

Winthrop came in with his hands full of brown papers.  Winnie watched him silently again while he put his stores in the closet and brought out plates and knives and forks.

“Where do you sleep, Governor?”

“In a pleasanter place than I slept in last night,” said her brother.

“Yes, but where?  I don’t see any bed.”

“You don’t see it by day.  It only shews itself at night.”

“But where is it, Governor?”

“You’re sitting on it, Winnie.”

“This! —­”