“I thank you very much Mr. Herder —­ I would do it gladly —­ but I am so tied at home that it is impossible.  I cannot go.”

“You can not?” said the naturalist.

“I cannot —­ not at present —­ my duty keeps me at home.  You will see me in Mannahatta by and by,” he added with a faint smile and beginning to row again; —­ “but I don’t know when.”

“I wish it would be soon,” said the naturalist.  “I should like to have you there wiz me.  But you must not give up for difficulties.  You must come?”

“I shall come,” said Winthrop.

“How would you like this?” said Mr. Herder after pondering a little.  “I have a friend who is an excellent —­ what you call him? —­ bookseller —­ Would you like a place wiz him, to keep his books and attend to his business, for a while, and so get up by degrees?  I could get you a place wiz him.”

“No, sir,” said Winthrop smiling; —­ “the eagle never begins by being something else.”

“Dat is true,” said the naturalist.  “Well —­ I wish I could do you some goot, but you will not let me; —­ and I trust you that you are right.”

“You are a good friend, sir,” said Winthrop gratefully.

“Well —­ I mean to be,” said the other, nodding his good-humoured head.

Elizabeth was too far off to hear any of this dialogue; and she was a little astonished again when they reached the land to see her boatman grasp her friend’s hand and give it a very hearty shake.

“I shall never forget it, sir,” she heard Winthrop say.

“I do not wish that,” said the naturalist.  “What for should you remember it? it is good for nozing.”

“Is that boy studying Latin and Greek?” said Elizabeth as she and Mr. Herder walked up to the house together.

“That boy?  That boy is a very smart boy.”

“But is he studying Greek?”

“What makes you ask so?”

“Because there was a Greek book and a dictionary there in the boat with him.”

“Then I suppose he is studying it,” said Mr. Herder.

Elizabeth changed her mind and agreed to go with the huckle-berry party; but she carried a book with her and sat in a corner with it, seldom giving her eyes to anything beside.

Yet there was enough on every hand to call them away.  The soft grey sky and grey water, the deep heavy-green foliage of the banks, and the fine quiet outlines of the further mountains, set off by no brilliant points of light and shade, —­ made a picture rare in its kind of beauty.  Its colouring was not the cold grey of the autumn, only a soft mellow chastening of summer’s gorgeousness.  A little ripple on the water, —­ a little fleckiness in the cloud, —­ a quiet air; it was one of summer’s choice days, when she escapes from the sun’s fierce watch and sits down to rest herself.  But Elizabeth’s eyes, if they wavered at all, were called off by some burst of the noisy sociability of the party, in which she deigned not to share.  Her cousin, Mr. Herder, Rufus, Asahel, and Winifred, were in full cry after pleasure; and a cheery hunt they made of it.