"You want it," said her handmaid. "The Governor said you was to take it."
"Is he here!" exclaimed Elizabeth, with an amount of fire in eye and action that, as Clam declared afterwards, "had like to have made her upset everything." But she answered demurely,
"He ain't here just yet. I guess he's comin', though."
Elizabeth's eye went down, and an eye as observant if not so brilliant as her own, watched how the pink tinge rose and mounted in the cheeks as she betook herself to the bread and coffee. "Ain't she eatin' her breakfast like a good child!" said Clam to herself. "That put her down."
And with a "Now you'll sleep —" Clam carried off the breakfast tray, and took care her mistress should have no second disturbance from anybody else. Elizabeth only heard once or twice in the course of the day that nothing was wanted from her; so slept her sleep out.
It was slept out at last, and Elizabeth got up and began to dress. Or rather, took her dressing-comb in hand and planted herself in front of the window, and there forgot what she had to do. It was a fine afternoon of October, late in the day. It was very fair outside. The hills touched here and there in their green with a frost-spot — yellow, or tawny, or red; the river water lying very calm; and a calm sky over-head; the air as pure as though vapours and mists were refined away for ever. The distant trees of the woodland shewed in round distinct masses of foliage, through such an atmosphere; the rocky shore edge cut sharp against the water; the nearer cedars around the home valley seemed to tell their individual leaves. Here and there in some one of them a Virginia creeper's luxuriant wreaths were colouring with suspicious tokens of crimson. Not in their full brilliancy yet, the trees and the vine-leaves were in fair preparation; and fancy could not imagine them more fair than they looked that afternoon.
"So bright without! — and so dark within!" — Elizabeth thought. "When will it end — or is it only beginning? Such a flood of brightness was over me a little while ago, — and now, there is one burden in one room, and another in another room, and I myself am the greatest burden of all. Because my life has nothing to look forward to — in this world — and heaven is not enough; I want something in this world. — Yes, I do. — Yet Winthrop Landholm has nothing more than I have, in this world's things, and he don't feel like me. What is the reason? Why is his face always so at rest, — so bright — so strong? Ah, it must be that he is so much better than I! — he has more, not of this world's things; religion is something to him that it is not to me; he must love his Master far better than I do. — Then religion might be more to me. — It shall be — I will try; — but oh! if I had never seen another Christian in all my life, how well his single example would make me know that religion is a strong reality. What a reward his will be! I wonder how many besides me he will have drawn to heaven — he does not dream that he has ever done me any good. Yet it is pleasant to owe so much to him — and it's bitter! —"
"You'll tire yourself with lookin', Miss 'Lizabeth," said Clam behind her. "Mannahatta ain't so far off as that."
Elizabeth started a little from her fixed attitude and began to handle her dressing-comb.
"'Taint so far folks can't get here, I guess."