-- "I guess we had better walk on now, Miss Elizabeth." "Walk on! -- it rains too hard." "But we are in the shed, while other people are out ?" "No but, -- suppose that by going out I could bring them in ?" "Then I would certainly act as your messenger," he said smiling.

"But you can't reach _all_ the people who are so careless as to go out without umbrellas." Elizabeth was betrayed into a laugh -- a genuine hearty laugh of surprise, in which her awkwardness was for a moment forgotten.
"How came you to bring one, such a day ?" "I thought the sun was going to shine." "But seriously, Mr.Landholm, my question," -- said Elizabeth.
"What was it ?" "How ought I to enjoy so much more than she has ?" "Modestly, I should think." "What do you mean ?" "If you were to give the half of your fortune to one such, for instance," he said with a slight smile, "do you fancy you would have adjusted two scales of the social balance to hang even ?" "No," said Elizabeth, -- "I suppose not." "You would have given away what she could not keep; you would have put out of your power what would not be in hers; and on the whole, she would be scantly a gainer and the world would be a loser." "Yet surely," said Elizabeth, "something is due from my hand to hers." Her companion was quite silent, rather oddly, she thought; and her meditations came back for a moment from social to individual distinctions and differences.

Then, really in a puzzle as to the former matter, she repeated her question.
"But what can one do to them, then, Mr.Winthrop?
-- or what should be one's aim ?" "Put them in the way of exercising the talent and industry and circumstance which have done such great things for us." "So that by the time they have the means they will be ready for them?
-- But dear me! that is a difficult matter!" said Elizabeth.
Her companion smiled a little.
"But they haven't any talent, Mr.Landholm, -- nor industry nor circumstance either.

To be sure those latter wants might be made up." "Most people have talent, of one sort or another," said Winthrop.

"There's a little specimen pretty well stocked." "Do you think so ?" "Try her." "I don't know how to try her!" said Elizabeth.