“Ah, but best and most generous of friends, I drive you from your home by staying here! I cannot stay! I must depart!”
“You must not, Mrs. Clifton—this is your proper home, as it is also mine. You do not drive me hence—why should you? Could I possibly remain, your company would be the dearest solace I could have. No! it is memory that drives me hence, sweet friend! I must—I must forget myself in distant lands! Forgive me for talking thus—to be quite plain, as soon as the intricate affairs of this estate are disentangled, and wound up, I design to set out for two or three years of travel; yet I shall not be able to get off for several weeks.”
Here the conversation ended for the present. Thinking that for the first few days, at least, Mrs. Georgia would need a female companion, he got in his chaise, and went ever to Hardbargain for Catherine.
“Kate is not here,” said Mrs. Clifton, in answer to his inquiries—“do you not know that she has been for three weeks at her brother’s cabin, nursing his wife through her confinement?”
Major Clifton threw his hat upon the table, and dropped himself into a chair, with an air of extreme vexation, saying—
“It really seems to me that that girl is nurse and servant-in-general to the neighborhood! Her brother might easily have found some old woman to nurse his wife. I wonder you permit her to be made such a slave of by everybody, mother.”
“It does her no harm, Archer.”
“Twelve months since you introduced Catherine into the best society in Richmond.”
“The richest, you mean—not the best, by a great deal.”
“And now you suffer her to throw herself into the most vulgar and common! Dear madam, is this right?”