“Why should he want to make himself anything more than a farmer?” said Mr. Haye without looking off his book.

“Why would you, sir?”

“I would just as lief be a farmer as anything else,” said Mr. Haye, “if I had happened to be born in that line.  It’s as good a way of life as any other.”

“Why, father! —­ You would rather be what you are now?”

“Well —­ I wasn’t born a farmer,” said Mr. Haye conclusively.

“Then you would have everybody stay where he happens to be!”

“I wouldn’t have anything about it,” said Mr. Haye.  “That’s what I want for myself —­let other people do what they will.”

“But some people can’t do what they will.”

“Well —­Be thankful you’re not one of ’em.”

“Father, if I can have what I will, I would have you help this young man.”

“I don’t know how to help him, child; —­ he’s not in my way.  If he wanted to go into business, there would be something in it, but I have nothing to do with schools and Colleges.”

Elizabeth’s cheek lit up with one of the prettiest colours a woman’s cheek ever wears, —­ the light of generous indignation.

“I wish I had the means!” she said.

“What would you do with it?”

“I would help him, somehow.”

“My dear, you could not do it; they would not let you; their pride would stand in the way of everything of the kind.”

“I don’t believe it,” said Elizabeth, the fire of her eye shining now through drops that made it brighter; —­ “I am sure something could be done.”

“It’s just as well undone,” said Mr. Haye calmly.

“Why, sir?” —­ his daughter asked almost fiercely.

“What put this young fellow’s head upon Colleges, and all that?”

“I don’t know, sir! —­ how should I?”

“It won’t last —­ it’s just a freak to be a great man and get out of hob-nailed shoes —­ he’ll get over it; and much better he should.  It’s much better he should stay here and help his father, and that’s what he’s made for.  He’ll never be anything else.”

Mr. Haye threw down his book and left the room; and his daughter stood at the window with her heart swelling.

“He will be something else, and he’ll not get over it,” she said to herself, while her eyes were too full to let her see a single thing outside the window.  “He is fit for something else, and he will have it, hard or easy, short or long; and I hope he will! —­ and oh, I wish father had done what would be for his honour in this thing! —­”

There was a bitter taste to the last sentence, and tears would not wash it out.  Elizabeth was more superb than ordinary that night at supper, and had neither smiles nor words for anybody.

A day or two after they were going away.

“Winthrop,” she said at parting, (not at all by familiarity, but because she did not in common grant them a right to any title whatsoever) —­ “may I leave you my little Merry-go-round? —­ and will you let nobody have the charge of it except yourself?”