“But mother,” said the little girl, “isn’t it right for me to ask him to let Winthrop go to school and learn, as he wants to?”

“Yes, daughter,” said the mother, bending forward till her face rested on the little brow upturned to her, and the gathered tears falling, —­ “let us thank God that we may ask him anything —­ we have that comfort —­ ’In everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving,’ we may make our requests known unto him —­ only we must be willing after all to have him judge and choose for us.”

The child clasped her mother’s neck and kissed her again and again.

“Then I won’t cry any more, mamma, now that I know what the matter is.”

But Elizabeth noticed when Winthrop came in at night, how his little sister attached herself to his side, and with what a loving lip and longing eye.

“Your little sister is very fond of you,” she could not help saying, one moment when Winifred had run off.

“Too fond,” he said.

“She has a most sensitive organization,” said Rufus.  “She is too fond of everything that she loves.”

“She is not too fond of you,” thought Elizabeth, as Winifred came back to her other brother, with some little matter which she thought concerned her and him. “‘Sensitive organization!’ What queer people these are!”

They were so queer, that Elizabeth thought she would like to see what was the farming work with which their hands were filled and which swallowed up the daily life of these people; and the next day she proposed to go with Winifred when she went the rounds again with her baskets of dinner.  Miss Cadwallader was glad of any thing that promised a little variety, so she very willingly made one.

It was a pleasant September day, the great heats gone, a gentler state of the air and the light; summer was just falling gracefully into her place behind the advancing autumn.  It was exceeding pleasant walking, through the still air, and Elizabeth and her cousin enjoyed it.  But little Winifred was loaded down with two baskets, one in each hand.  They went so for some time.

“Winnie,” said Elizabeth at last, “give me one of those —­ I’ll carry it.”

“O no!” said the little girl looking up in some surprise, —­ “they’re not very heavy —­ I don’t want any help.”

“Give it to me; you shan’t carry ’em both.”

“Then take the other one,” said Winifred, —­ “thank you, Miss Elizabeth —­ I’m just going to take this in to father, in the field here.”

“In the field where?  I don’t see anybody.”

“O because the corn is so high.  You’ll see ’em directly.  This is the bend-meadow lot.  Father’s getting in the corn.”

A few more steps accordingly brought them to a cleared part of the field, where the tall and thick cornstalks were laid on the ground.  There, at some distance, they saw the group of workers, picking and husking the yellow corn, the farm wagon standing by.  Little Winifred crept under the fence and went to them with her basket, and her companions stood at the fence looking.  There were Mr. Landholm, and Asahel, Mr. Doolittle and another man, seen here and there through the rows of corn.  Asahel sat by a heap, husking; Mr. Landholm was cutting down stalks; and bushel baskets stood about, empty, or with their yellow burden shewing above the top.