“Why?” dryly said the master of the house.

“I guess he’d be more likely to come.”

“If I thought so, and it were my part to do it, I certainly should ask him,” said Elizabeth.  “There isn’t any person so pleasant as he to take his place, among all that come here.”

“You were glad of what Mr. Satterthwaite told us last night weren’t you?” said Rose with a sinister smile.

“Very glad!”

“Did you ever hear Mr. Satterthwaite go on so about anybody?  One would have thought Mr. Landholm was his own brother.  I wonder if that was for your sake, Lizzie?”

“I presume it was for his own sake,” said Elizabeth.  “I should think anybody who had the privilege of being Mr. Landholm’s friend, would know how to value it.”

“You would value it, for instance, I suppose?”

“I have no doubt I should.”

“It seems to me you are a little too sure of valuing it,” said Mr. Haye, —­ “for a young lady who has not that privilege.”

Elizabeth’s cheeks burned on the instant, but her eye was steady, and it looked full on her father while she asked him,

“Why, sir?”

“It is not worth while for you to like other people faster than they like you?”

“Why not?” —­ said Elizabeth, her cheek and eye both deepening in their fire, but her look as steady and full, —­ “Why not? —­ if it should happen that I am less likeable than they?”

“Pshaw!” said Mr. Haye.

“If I were to gauge the respect and esteem I give others, by the respect and esteem they might be able to give me, —­ I should cut off maybe the best pleasures of my life.”

“Are respect and esteem the best pleasures of your life?” said Rose satirically.

“I have never known any superior to them,” said Elizabeth.  But she brought, as she spoke, her eye of fire to bear upon her cousin, who gave way before it and was mum.

“And what may respect and esteem lead to?” said Mr. Haye.

“I don’t know,” said Elizabeth.  “And I don’t care —­ even to ask.”

“Suppose they are not returned?”

“I have supposed that in the first place,” she answered.

“At that rate you might be over head and ears in your regard for several people at once, none of whom cared a straw for you,” said Mr. Haye.

“When I find several, men or women, that deserve the sort of respect and esteem I am talking of,” said Elizabeth —­ “I am not talking of a common kind, that you can give common people —­ I shall be in a new world!”

“And have you this sort of ‘respect and esteem’ for Mr. Winthrop Landholm?” said her father.

“That’s another question,” said Elizabeth, for the first time dropping her eye and speaking more quietly; —­ “I was talking of the general principle.”

“And I am asking of the particular instance.  Have you this respect and esteem for this particular person of your acquaintance?”