“But bread and butter isn’t all, Mr. Landholm; what will they do with our dinners, without fresh meat?”

“What will they do with them?  Eat ’em, fast enough, only you have enough.  I’ll be bound their appetites will take care of the rest, after they have been running over the mountains all the morning.  You’ve some chickens, hav’n’t you? —­ and I could get a lamb now and then from neighbour Upshur; and here’s Winthrop can get you birds and fish any day in the year.”

“Winthrop will hardly have time.”

“Yes he will; and if he don’t we can call in Anderese.  He’s a pretty good hunter.”

“I’m not a bad one,” said Rufus.

“And you have Karen to help you. I think it will be a very fine thing, and be a good start maybe towards Rufus’s going to College.”

Another pause, during which nothing moved but the knife and Mrs. Landholm’s fingers.

“Well —­ what do you say?” said her husband.

“If you think it will do —­ I am willing to try,” she answered.

“I know it will do; and I’ll go and write directly to Haye —­ I suppose he’d like to know; and to-morrow my hands will have something to hold besides pens.”

There was profound silence again for a little after he went out.

“How old are these children?” Mrs. Landholm said.

Neither answered promptly.

“I saw one of them when I was at Asphodel,” said Winthrop; “and she was a pretty wellgrown girl; she must have been thirteen or fourteen.”

“And that was a year and a half ago!  Is her sister younger or older?”

“It isn’t her sister,” said Rufus; “it’s her cousin, I believe; Mr. Haye is her guardian.  She’s older.”

“How much?”

“A year or two —­ I don’t know exactly.”

Mrs. Landholm rose and took up her pan of potatoes with an air that seemed to say Miss Haye and her cousin were both in it, and carried it out into the kitchen.

Some little time had passed, and Winthrop went there to look for her.  She had put her pan down on the hearth, and herself by it, and there she was sitting with her arms round her knees.

Winthrop softly came and placed himself beside her.

“Mother —­”

She laid her hand upon his knee, without speaking to him or looking at him.

“Mother —­ I’ll be your provider.”

“I would a great deal rather be yours, Governor,” she said, turning to him a somewhat wistful face.

“There isn’t anything in the world I would rather,” said he, kissing her cheek.

She gave him a look that was reward enough.

“I wonder how soon they will come,” she said.

“That is what I was just asking; and pa said he supposed as soon as the weather was settled.”

“That won’t be yet awhile.  You must see and have a good garden, Governor.  Perhaps it will be all for the best.”

CHAPTER VIII.