Hills of the Shatemuc Part 111

"My work is there, Winnie."

"Yes, but you can't play there, Governor."

"I don't want to play," he said gently and lightly.

"But why, Governor?" -- said Winnie, whom the remark made uneasy, she couldn't tell why; -- "why don't you want to play?

why shouldn't you?"

"I feel more appet.i.te for work."

"But you didn't use to be so," said Winnie, raising her head to look at him. "You used to like play as well as anybody, Winthrop?"

"Perhaps I do yet, Winnie, if I had a chance."

"But then what do you mean by your having more appet.i.te for work? and not wanting to play?"

"I suppose it means no more but that the chance is wanting."

"But _why_ is it wanting, Governor?"

"Why are your Solomon's Seals not in flower?"

Winnie turned her head to look at them, and then brought it round again with the uneasiness in full force.

"But Governor! -- you don't mean to say that your life is like that?"

"Like what, Winnie?" said he with a pleasant look at her.

"Why, anything so dismal -- like the Solomon's Seals with the flower gone?"

"Are they dismal?"

"Why, no, -- but you would be, if you were like anything of that kind."

"Do I look like anything of that kind?"

"No," said Winnie, "indeed you don't, -- you never _look_ the least bit dismal in the world."

"I am not the least bit in the world, Winnie."

"I wish you had everything in the world that would give you pleasure!" she said, looking at him wistfully, with a vague unselfish consciousness that it might not all be for hers.

"That would be too much for any man's share, Winnie. You would make a Prince in a fairy tale of me."

"Well, what if I would?" said Winnie, half smiling, half sighing, and paying him all sort of leal homage in her heart's core.

"That is not commonly the lot of those who are to reign hereafter in a better kingdom."

Winnie rose up a little so that she could put both hands on his shoulders, and kissed him on forehead and cheeks; most loving kisses.

"But dear Governor, it isn't wrong for me to wish you to have both things, is it?"

"I hope not, dear Winnie. I don't think your wishes will do any mischief. But I am content to be here to-day."

"Are you? do you enjoy it?" she asked eagerly.

"Very much."

"I am so glad! I was afraid somehow you didn't -- as much as I did. But I am sorry you can't keep it, Governor. Isn't it all beautiful? I didn't know it was so delightful as it is."

And Winnie sighed her wish over again.

"You can't have your possessions in both worlds, Winnie."

"No, -- and I don't want to."

"You only wish that I could," he said smiling.

"Well, Winthrop, -- I can't help that."

"I am in better hands than yours, Winnie. Look at that shadow creeping down the mountain."

"It's from that little white cloud up there," said Winnie. "O how beautiful! --"

"You see how something that is bright enough in itself may cast a shadow," he said.

"Was that what you thought of when you told me to look at it?"

"No, -- not at that minute."

"But then we can see the cloud and we know that it is bright."

"And in the other case we _don't_ see the cloud and we know that it is bright. 'We _know_ that all things shall work together for good to them that love G.o.d, to them who are the called according to his purpose!'"

"But Governor, what are you talking of?"

"That little cloud which is rolling away from Wut-a-qut-o."

"But what cloud is over you, or rolling away from you?"

"I thought the whole land was in shadow to you, Winnie, because I cannot buy it."

"Why no it isn't," said Winnie. "It never looked so bright to me. It never seemed near so beautiful when it was ours."

"The other land never seemed so bright and never will seem so beautiful, as when it is ours. 'Thine eyes shall see the King in his beauty; they shall behold the land that is very far off.'"

Winnie smiled a most rested, pleased, gratified smile at him; and turned to another subject.