“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 thought and feeling went, broke up the conference; and the two fishers set forth on their errand; Rufus carrying the basket and fishing-poles, and Winthrop’s shoulder bearing the oars.  As they went down in front of the house, little Winifred ran out.

“Governor, mayn’t I go?”

“No!” said Rufus.

“We are going to Point Bluff, Winnie,” said Winthrop stopping to kiss her, —­ “and I am afraid you would roll off on one side while I was pulling up a fish on the other.”