“He is going to, you know.  Mr. Herder says so; and President Darcy says there are not two such young men seen in half a century as he and his brother.”

Elizabeth laid down her book and looked over at her companion, with an eye the other just met and turned away from.

“Rose, —­ how dare you talk to me so!”

“So how?” said the other, pouting and reddening, but without lifting her face from her work.

“You know, —­ about my father.  No matter what he does, if it were the worst thing in the world, your lips have no business to mention it to my ears.”

“I wasn’t saying anything bad,” said Rose.

“Your notions of bad and good, and honourable and dishonourable, are very different from mine!  If he did as you say, I should be bitterly ashamed.”

“I don’t see why.”

“I will not have such things spoken of to me, —­ Rose, do you understand?  What my father does, no human being has a right to comment upon to me; and none shall!”

“You think you may talk as you like to me,” said Rose, between pouting and crying.  “I was only laughing.”

“Laugh about something else.”

“I wish Winthrop Landholm had been here.”

“Why?”

“He’d have given you another speech about engineering.”

Elizabeth took her candle and book and marched out of the room.

CHAPTER XVIII.

One man has one way of talking, and another man has another, that’s all the difference between them.  GOOD-NATURED MAN.

Winthrop found he could go.  So according to his promise he dressed himself, and was looking out a pockethandkerchief from the small store in his trunk, when the door opened.

“Rufus! —­”

“Ah! —­ you didn’t expect to see me, did you?” said that gentleman, taking off his hat and coming in and closing the door with a face of great life and glee. —­ “Here I am, Governor!”

“What brought you here?” said his brother shaking his hand.

“What brought me here? —­ why, the stage-coach, to be sure; except five miles, that I rode on horseback.  What should bring me?”

“Something of the nature of a centrifugal force, I should judge.”

“Centrifugal! —­ You are my centre, Governor, —­ don’t you know that?  I tend to you as naturally as the poor earth does to the sun.  That’s why I am here —­ I couldn’t keep at a distance any longer.”

“My dear sir, at that rate you are running to destruction.”

“No, no,” said Rufus laughing, —­ “there’s a certain degree of license in our moral planetary system —­ I’m going away again as soon as I am rightly refreshed with the communication of your light and warmth.”

“Well,” said Winthrop untying his neckcloth, “it would seem but courtesy in the sun to stand still to receive his visitor —­ I’m very glad to see you, Will.”