"Where have you been, not to know it?"
"Hum —" said Elizabeth, — "if you mean where my mind has been, that is one question; as for my bodily self, I have been on the Castle Green."
"You have lost your walk," said he. "Don't you feel inclined to turn about with me and try to pick up what you came out for?"
"Better there than at home," thought Elizabeth, and she turned about accordingly.
"People come out for a variety of things," she remarked however.
"That is true," said Winthrop smiling. "I am afraid I was hasty in presuming I could help you to find your object. I was thinking only of mine."
"I don't know but you could, as well as anybody," said Elizabeth. "If you could give me your mother's secret for not minding disagreeable things."
"I am afraid I cannot say she does not mind them," he answered.
"What then? — I thought you said so."
"I do not remember what I said. I might have said that she does not struggle with them — those at least which cannot be removed by struggling."