It was agreed on all hands that they had been very successful; and little Winifred openly rejoiced over the quantity they had brought home for ‘mother’; but still Elizabeth did not add her store, and had nothing to say.  When they got to the landing-place, she would stay on the rocks to see how the boat was made fast.  Winifred ran up to the house with her basket, Miss Cadwallader went to get ready for supper, Rufus followed in her steps.  Asahel and Elizabeth stayed in the sunset glow to see Winthrop finish his part of the work; and then they walked up together.  Elizabeth kept her position on one side of the oars, but seemed as moody as ever, till they were about half way from the rocks; then suddenly she looked up into Winthrop’s face and said,

“Thank you.  I ought to have said it before.”

He bowed a little and smiled, in a way that set Elizabeth a thinking.  It was not like a common farmer’s boy.  It spoke him as quiet in his own standing as she was in hers; and yet he certainly had come home that day in his shirt sleeves, and with his mower’s jacket over his arm?  It was very odd.

“What was it you said that strawberry-place was in the shadow of sometimes?”

“Wut-a-qut-o?”

“What’s that?”

“The big mountain over there. This was in the shadow of it a little while ago.”

“What a queer name!  What does it mean?”

“It is Indian.  I have heard that it means, the whole name, —­ ‘He that catches the clouds.’”

“That is beautiful! —­”

“You must be tremendously strong,” she added presently, as if not satisfied that she had said enough, —­ “for you lifted me as if I had been no more than a featherweight.”

“You did not seem much more,” he said.

“Strong! —­” said Asahel —­

But Elizabeth escaped from Asahel’s exposition of the subject, into her room.

She had regained her good-humour, and everybody at the table said she had improved fifty per cent. since her coming to Shahweetah.  Which opinion Mr. Haye confirmed when he came a day or two afterward.

CHAPTER X.

Cam.  Be advised.
Flo.  I am; and by my fancy:  if my reason
Will thereto he obedient, I have reason;
If not, my senses, better pleased with madness,
Do bid it welcome. 
WINTER’S TALE.

The young ladies’ summering in the country had begun with good promise; there was no danger they would tire of it.  Mr. Haye gave it as his judgment that his daughter had come to the right place; and he was willing to spare no pains to keep her in the same mind.  He brought up a little boat with him the next time he came, and a delicate pair of oars; and Elizabeth took to boating with great zeal.  She asked for very little teaching; she had used her eyes, and now she patiently exercised her arms, till her eyes were satisfied; and after that the “Merry-go-round”