“By the way, uncle, why don’t you send Lisbeth to 9 England to finish her education? She’s growing to be a handsome woman and surely, if you’ll pardon me, your broad acres can yield sufficient to fit her for the high position she’ll be called to occupy.”
“She’s but a girl, all I have. She’s like her dead mother and I––I can’t let her go.”
“But think what her mother would wish. Go over with her.”
“I can’t leave the estate. The slaves are only to be depended on when they have a capable overseer. Mine is not altogether trustworthy.”
“Excuse me but I don’t think it right for her to associate with servants and people like the Allisons. By the way, who are these Allisons? When riding this afternoon we met the boy and child, and Lisbeth made much of them. Surely they are not of our class.”
“Allison is a Scotchman. I happened to be at Norfolk when he landed from the old country. The captain told me the fellow had been brought on board unconscious and with a bad wound in his head. I liked the man’s face, and asked no questions. He never spoke of the matter. I paid the cost of his passage and let him work it out. He’s a good accountant.”
“An objectionable person, probably an escaped convict,” remarked Mogridge with the air of a judge.
“On the contrary he seems a most respectable man. To be sure he’s a Dissenter, but one has to expect that. I’ve always found him trustworthy. He has taught a 10 field school for years and the children make good progress under his instruction.”
“You can’t mean that you allow Lisbeth to go to such a school?”
“Well, you see,” replied the squire as if in excuse, “the school is a small one, confined to my neighbours’ children, otherwise I wouldn’t allow it.”