It was a very comfortable home picture, Elizabeth thought, in a different line of life from that she was accustomed to, -- the farmer's wife and the tea-kettle, the dresser and the breakfast table, and the wooden kitchen floor and the stone hearth.

She did not know what a contrast _she_ made in it; her dainty little figure, very nicely dressed, standing on the flag-stones before the fire.

Mrs.Landholm felt it, and doubted.
"How do you like the place, Miss Haye ?" she ventured.
To her surprise the answer was an energetic, "Very much." "Then you are not afraid of living in a farm-house ?" "If I don't like living in it, I'll live out of it," said Elizabeth, returning a very dignified answer to Winthrop's 'good-morning' as he passed through the kitchen.
"Are you going down to Cowslip's mill, Governor ?" said Mrs.
Landholm.
"Yes, ma'am." "You will lose your breakfast." "I must take the turn of the tide.

Never mind breakfast." "Going down after my trunks ?" said Elizabeth.
"Yes, ma'am." "I'll go too.

Wait a minute!" And she was in her room before a word could be said.
"But Miss Haye," said Mrs.Landholm, as she came out with bonnet and shawl, "you won't go without your breakfast?
It will be ready long before you can get back." "Breakfast can wait." "But you will want it." "No -- I don't care if I do." And down she ran to the rocks, followed by Asahel.
There was a singular still sweetness in the early summer morning on the water.