estrained any further expression of annoyance.

The major's liking for Ellis had increased within the year. The young
man was not only a good journalist, but possessed sufficient cleverness
and tact to make him excellent company. The major was fond of argument,
but extremely tenacious of his own opinions. Ellis handled the foils of
discussion with just the requisite skill to draw out the major,
permitting himself to be vanquished, not too easily, but, as it were,
inevitably, by the major's incontrovertible arguments.

Olivia had long suspected Ellis of feeling a more than friendly interest
in Clara. Herself partial to Tom, she had more than once thought it
hardly fair to Delamere, or even to Clara, who was young and
impressionable, to have another young man constantly about the house.
True, there had seemed to be no great danger, for Ellis had neither the
family nor the means to make him a suitable match for the major's
sister; nor had Clara made any secret of her dislike for Ellis, or of
her resentment for his supposed depreciation of Delamere. Mrs. Carteret
was inclined to a more just and reasonable view of Ellis's conduct in
this matter, but nevertheless did not deem it wise to undeceive Clara.
Dislike was a stout barrier, which remorse might have broken down. The
major, absorbed in schemes of empire and dreams of his child's future,
had not become cognizant of the affair. His wife, out of friendship for
Tom, had refrained from mentioning it; while the major, with a delicate
regard for Clara's feelings, had said nothing at home in regard to his
interview with her lover.

At the Chronicle office Ellis took the front seat beside the major.
After leaving the city pavements, they bowled along merrily over an
excellent toll-road, built of oyster shells from the neighboring sound,
stopping at intervals to pay toll to the gate-keepers, most of whom were
white women with tallow complexions and snuff-stained lips,--the
traditional "poor-white." For part of the way the road was bordered with
a growth of scrub oak and pine, interspersed with stretches of cleared
land, white with the opening cotton or yellow with ripening corn. To the
right, along the distant river-bank, were visible here and there groups
of turpentine pines, though most of this growth had for some years been
exhausted. Twenty years before, Wellington had been the world's greatest
shipping port for naval stores. But as the turpentine industry had moved
southwa