“O I feel very well,” said Winnie.  “But Governor, I wish you could keep all this! —­”

“I couldn’t live here and in Mannahatta too, Winnie.”

“But Governor, you don’t mean always to live in Mannahatta, do you? —­ and nowhere else?”

“My work is there, Winnie.”

“Yes, but you can’t play there, Governor.”

“I don’t want to play,” he said gently and lightly.

“But why, Governor?” —­ said Winnie, whom the remark made uneasy, she couldn’t tell why; —­ “why don’t you want to play? why shouldn’t you?”

“I feel more appetite for work.”

“But you didn’t use to be so,” said Winnie, raising her head to look at him.  “You used to like play as well as anybody, Winthrop?”

“Perhaps I do yet, Winnie, if I had a chance.”

“But then what do you mean by your having more appetite for work? and not wanting to play?”

“I suppose it means no more but that the chance is wanting.”

“But why is it wanting, Governor?”

“Why are your Solomon’s Seals not in flower?”

Winnie turned her head to look at them, and then brought it round again with the uneasiness in full force.

“But Governor! —­ you don’t mean to say that your life is like that?”

“Like what, Winnie?” said he with a pleasant look at her.

“Why, anything so dismal —­ like the Solomon’s Seals with the flower gone?”

“Are they dismal?”

“Why, no, —­ but you would be, if you were like anything of that kind.”

“Do I look like anything of that kind?”

“No,” said Winnie, “indeed you don’t, —­ you never look the least bit dismal in the world.”

“I am not the least bit in the world, Winnie.”

“I wish you had everything in the world that would give you pleasure!” she said, looking at him wistfully, with a vague unselfish consciousness that it might not all be for hers.

“That would be too much for any man’s share, Winnie.  You would make a Prince in a fairy tale of me.”

“Well, what if I would?” said Winnie, half smiling, half sighing, and paying him all sort of leal homage in her heart’s core.

“That is not commonly the lot of those who are to reign hereafter in a better kingdom.”

Winnie rose up a little so that she could put both hands on his shoulders, and kissed him on forehead and cheeks; most loving kisses.

“But dear Governor, it isn’t wrong for me to wish you to have both things, is it?”

“I hope not, dear Winnie.  I don’t think your wishes will do any mischief.  But I am content to be here to-day.”

“Are you? do you enjoy it?” she asked eagerly.

“Very much.”

“I am so glad!  I was afraid somehow you didn’t —­ as much as I did.  But I am sorry you can’t keep it, Governor.  Isn’t it all beautiful?  I didn’t know it was so delightful as it is.”