way myself."

Eloise was a little sobered.

"I am much obliged to you, Sir," she said.

"So it seems," he replied, dryly. "I shall be forced to offend you
again," he continued, "as further delay will render the stream entirely
impassable."

And before she could utter a syllable of deprecation, she had swung a
brief moment in the air, and was upon the other side, up which Mr. St.
George, in his high seven-league boots, clambered so soon as he had set
her down. Instead of venturing any new display of indignation, as St.
George expected, Eloise walked on with him quietly a moment, and then,
looking up, said,--

"You are very kind, and I am very ungracious."

Mr. St. George did not deny her assertion, only he glanced down at her
from his height a second with an inexplicable expression, and
immediately after the house became visible bowed low and left her.

"There's been such a tantrum, Miss," said the quadroon Hazel, combing
out Eloise's hair that night, "and Massa St. George's horse waited two
mortal hours to take him to Blue Bluffs. You ought to have heard him
swear! He galloped off at last like mad."

And as Eloise gave no response, unless the cloud on her face spoke for
her in the glass, the familiar girl added,--

"Not at you, Miss, not swearing at you,--oh, no, indeed!--but at all of
us, to think we'd let you go alone."

"Mr. St. George is too solicitous. That will do, Hazel. Have you spoken
to your master about buying Vane?"

"Laws, Miss, I never feels as if he was any master of mine, leastwise
excep' one can't help minding him. 'S different from ole Massa,--we
minded ole Massa for lub,--but I dunno if it's the music, when Massa St.
George speaks, that makes you do what he says, when you just don't mean
to,--as if you couldn't help it, and didn't want to help it?" suggested
Hazel.

"Mr. St. George," said Eloise, "is very good to his people; they ought
to wish to obey him."

"Yes, Miss. On'y he a'n't no business _here_."

"Don't let me hear you speak so again, Hazel," said Eloise, facing the
suddenly cringing girl. "Now you can go."

But Hazel lingered still, over one and another odd trifle, and at length
glancing up from where she stooped, with a scarlet on her young tawny
cheek, she added, in a low voice,--

"You'll speak to Massa St. George now for me, won't you, Miss?"

"What? About Vane? You would do better yourself. Yes."

Two or three days passed away after this little promise to Hazel,