There was extreme depression in voice and lip, and she bent down her face on her hand.

Two turns the length of the room Rufus took; then he came to the back of her chair and laid his hand upon her shoulder.

“But mother,” he said cheerfully, “you haven’t told us the way to escape disappointments yet; I didn’t understand it.  For aught I see, everybody has his share.  Even you —­ and I don’t know who deserves them less —­ even you, I am afraid, are disappointed, in me.”

It was as much as he could do, evidently, to say that; his eyes were brilliant through fire and water at once.  She lifted up her head, but was quite silent.

“How is it, mamma? or how can it be?”

“I must take you to the Bible again, Rufus.”

“Well, ma’am, I’ll go with you.  Where?”

She turned over the leaves till she found the place, and giving it to him bade him read.

“’Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful; but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his law doth he meditate, day and night.

“’And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in due season; his leaf also shall not wither, and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.’”

Rufus stopped and stood looking on the page.

“Beautiful words!” he said.

“They will bear looking at,” said Mrs. Landholm.

“But my dear mother, I never heard of anybody in my life of whom this was true.”

“How many people have you heard of, in your life, who answered the description?”

Rufus turned and began to walk up and down again.

“But suppose he were to undertake something not well —­ not right?”

“The security reaches further back,” said Winthrop.

“You forget,” said his mother, “he could not do that; or could not persist in it.”

Rufus walked, and the others sat still and looked at the fire, till the opening of the door let in Mr. Landholm and a cold blast of air; which roused the whole party.  Winthrop put more wood on the fire; Mr. Landholm sat down in the corner and made himself comfortable; and Mrs. Landholm fetched an enormous tin pan of potatoes and began paring them.  Rufus presently stopped behind her chair, and said softly, “What’s that for, mother?”

“For your breakfast to-morrow, sir.”

“Where is Karen?”

“In bed.”

“Why don’t you let her do them, mother?”

“She has not time, my son.”

Rufus stood still and looked with a discontented face at the thin blue-veined fingers in which the coarse dirty roots were turning over and over.

“I’ve got a letter from my friend Haye to-day,” Mr. Landholm said.

“What Haye is that?” said his wife.

“What Haye? —­there’s only one that I know of; my old friend Haye —­ you’ve heard me speak of him a hundred times.  I used to know him long ago in Mannahatta when I lived at Pillicoddy; and we have been in the Legislature together, time and again.”