“I am resting. —­ I couldn’t rest so well anywhere else.”

“Couldn’t you?”

“No! —­” she said earnestly.

He turned away and went on walking.  Elizabeth blessed him for it.

The moon shone, and the wind blew, and steadily the vessel sailed on; till higher grounds began to rise on either side of her, and hills stood back of hills, ambitious of each other’s standing, and threw their deep shadows all along the margin of the river.  As the sloop entered between these narrowing and lifting walls of the river channel, the draught of air became gentler, often hindered by some outstanding high point she had left behind; more slowly she made her way past hill and hill-embayed curves of the river, less stoutly her sails were filled, more gently her prow rippled over the smoother water.  Sometimes she passed within the shadow of a lofty hill-side; and then slipped out again into the clear fair sparkling water where the moon shone.

“Are we near there?” said Elizabeth suddenly, turning her head to arrest her walking companion.  He came to the back of the chair.

“Near Wut-a-qut-o?”

“Yes.”

“No.  Nearing it, but not near it yet.”

“How soon shall we be?”

“If the wind holds, I should think in two hours.”

“Where do we stop?”

“At the sloop’s quarters —­ the old mill —­about two miles down the river from Shahweetah.”

“Why wouldn’t she carry us straight up to the place?”

“It would be inconvenient landing there, and would very much delay the sloop’s getting to her moorings.”

“I’ll pay for that! —­”

“We can get home as well in another way.”

“But then we shall have to stay here all night.”

“Here, on the sloop, you mean?  The night is far gone already.”

“Not half!” said Elizabeth.  “It’s only a little past twelve.”

“Aren’t you tired?”

“I suppose so, but I don’t feel it.”

“Don’t you want to take some sleep before morning?”

“No, I can’t.  But you needn’t walk there to take care of me, Mr. Winthrop.  I shall be quite safe alone.”

“No, you will not,” he said; and going to some of the sloop’s receptacles, he drew out an old sail and laying it on the deck by her side he placed himself upon it, in a half sitting, half reclining posture, which told of some need of rest on his part.

“You are tired,” she said earnestly.  “Please don’t stay here for me!”

“It pleases me to stay,” he said lightly.  “It is no hardship, under ordinary circumstances, to pass such a night as this out of doors.”

“What is it in these circumstances?” said Elizabeth quickly.

“Not a hardship.”

“You don’t say much more than you are obliged to,” thought Elizabeth bitterly.  “It is ‘not a hardship’ to stay there to take care of me; —­ and there is not in the world another person left to me who could say even as much.” —­