“I have met my master now,” she thought, and her eyes sparkled, —­ “once for all —­ if I never did before. —­ What a fool I am!”

For she knew, she acknowledged to herself at the same moment, that she did not like him the less for it —­ she liked him exceedingly the more; in spite of a twinge of deep mortification about it, and though there was bitter shame that he should know or guess any of her feeling.  If her eyes sparkled, they sparkled through tears.

The tears were got rid of, for Winthrop came back and threw himself down again.  Then with that he began to put wreaths of the orange and red winterberries and sprays of wych hazel and bits of exquisite ivy, one after the other, into her hands.  Her hands took them mechanically, one after the other.  Her eyes buried themselves in them.  She wished for her sunbonnet shield again.

“What do you bring these to me for?” she said rather abruptly.

“Don’t you like to have them?” said he, putting into her fingers another magnificent piece of Virginia creeper.

“Yes indeed —­ very much —­ but —­”

“It will be some time before I see you again,” said he as he added the last piece of his bunch.  “These will be all gone.”

“Some time!” said Elizabeth.

“Yes.  There is work on my hands down yonder that admits of no delay.  I could but just snatch time enough to come up here.”

“I am very much obliged to you for these!” said Elizabeth, returning to her bunch of brilliant vine branches.

“You can pay me for them in any way you please.”

The colour started again, but it was a very gentle, humble, and frank look which she turned round upon him.  His was bright enough.

“How soon do you think of coming to Mannahatta?”

“I don’t know, —­” said Elizabeth, not choosing to say exactly the words that came to her tongue.

“If I could be here too, I should say this is the best place.”

“Can’t you come often enough?”

“How often would be often enough?” said he with an amused look.

“Leave definitions on one side, and please answer me.”

“Willingly.  I leave the definition on your side.  I don’t like to speak in the dark.”

“Well, can’t you come tolerably often?” said Elizabeth colouring.

He smiled.

“Not for some time.  My hands are very full just now.”

“You contrive to have them so always, don’t you?”

“I like to have them so.  It is not always my contrivance.”

“What has become of that suit —­ I don’t know the names now —­ in which you were engaged two or three years ago —­ in which you took so many objections, and the Chancellor allowed them all, against Mr. Brick?”

“Ryle?”

“Yes! —­ I believe that’s the name.”

“For a man called Jean Lessing?”

“I don’t know anything about Lessing —­ I think Ryle was the other name —­You were against Ryle.”