"Oh, Mara! let us shut up shop at once," cried Ella. "Papa is at leisure now and we can make little expeditions down the bay, out to Summerville and elsewhere."
"No," Mara replied, "I would rather do just what we agreed upon. It's only a few days now."
"You are as sot as the everlasting hills."
Mara was silent, and glad indeed that her quiet face gave no hint of the tumult in her heart.
Mrs. Hunter's eyes were angrily following Clancy and Miss Ainsley. "Well," she said, with a scornful laugh, "that renegade Southerner has found his proper match in that Yankee coquette. I doubt whether he gets her though, if a man ever does get a born flirt. When she's through with Charleston she'll be through with him, if all I hear of her is true."
"Oh, you're mistaken, Mrs. Hunter," Ella answered. "She fairly dotes on him, and if he don't marry her he's a worse flirt than she is. Think of Mr. Clancy's blue blood. She undoubtedly appreciates that."
"I'm inclined to think that he was a changeling, and that old Colonel
Clancy's child was spirited away."
"I beg your pardon, Mrs. Hunter, but I differ with you. While I cannot share in many of Mr. Clancy's views and affiliations, he has the reputation of being sincere and straightforward. Even his enemies must admit that he seeks to make his friendliness to the North conducive to Southern interests."
Mara's heart smote her that even Captain Bodine had been fairer to Clancy than she had been.
Words rose to Ella's lips, but she repressed them, and soon afterward they returned to their respective homes.