Slowly—­all too gradually at first—­swinging lazily wound in the eddies, catching, now against a jutting stone, now entangled by a blade of grass—­Rosa’s heart in her throat as she watched it, lest Mabel’s footsteps should be audible upon the rocky path, Mabel’s hat appear above the spur of the hill.  Then the channel caught it, whirled it over and over, faster and faster, and sucked it downward.

Mrs. Sutton was at the tea-table with the girls that evening, when Johnson, the sable Mercury, showed himself at the door, to inform his superior that he had “got everything at de sto’ she sent him fur to buy.”

“You mailed the letters, Johnson?” said the mild mistress, rather anxiously.

“All on dem, Mistis!”

“The unconscionable liar!” thought Rosa, virtuously, “he ought to be flogged!  But it is none of my business to contradict him.”

She did not say now, “My hands are clean!”

CHAPTER VI.

Craft—­or diplomacy!

“Your letter notifies me, in general terms, that the answers returned to your inquiries as to my antecedents and present reputation are the reverse of satisfactory.  You feel constrained, you add, in view of the information thus obtained, to interdict my further intercourse with your sister or any other member of your family.  Since I cannot battle with shadows, or refute insinuations the drift of which I do not in the least comprehend, may I trouble you to put the allegations to which you refer into a definite and tangible shape?  Let me know who are my accusers, and what are the iniquities with which they charge me.  The worst criminal against human and divine laws has the right to demand thus much before he is convicted and sentenced.

“As to your prohibition of my continued correspondence with Miss Aylett, I shall consider her my promised wife, and write to her regularly as such, until you have made good your indictment against me, or until I receive the assurance under her own hand and seal that my conduct in thus addressing her is obnoxious to herself.

“I have the honor, sir, of signing myself

“Your obedient servant,

“Frederic S. Chilton.”

The cool contempt of the reply to his imperative dismissal of whatever claims the presumptuous adventurer his aunt had encouraged believed he had upon Mabel’s notice or affection, was likely to irk Winston Aylett as more intemperate language could not.  It did more.  It baffled him, for a time.  He could, and he meant, to withhold the lover’s letter from his sister’s eyes.  He could—­and upon this also he was determined—­command her, in the masterful manner that heretofore had never failed to work submission, never to meet, speak, or write again to the man he almost hated; will her to forget her childish fancy for his handsome face and glozing arts, and in the fulness of time, to bestow her in marriage upon a partner of his own providing.  He had no misgivings as to his ability to accomplish all this, if the blackguard aforesaid could be kept out of her way until that remedial agent, Time, and lawful authority had a chance to do their work.