Elsie's eyes sparkled: she was proud of her husband and father. Rose, too, smiled approval.
"Sounds very fine," growled Boyd, "but I say you've no right to put up the price of labor."
"Papa," cried young Horace, straightening himself and casting a withering look upon Boyd, "I hope neither you nor Brother Edward will ever give in to them a single inch. Such insolence!"
"Let us change the subject," said old Mr. Dinsmore, "it is not an agreeable one."
It so happened that a few days after this Messrs. Dinsmore, Travilla and
Leland were talking together just within the entrance to the avenue at
Ion when Wilkins Foster, George Boyd and Calhoun Conly came riding by.
They brought their horses to a walk as they neared the gate, and Foster called out sneeringly, "Two scalawags and a carpet-bagger! fit company for each other."
"So we think, sir," returned Travilla coolly, "though we do not accept the epithets you so generously bestow upon us."
"It is an easy thing to call names; any fool is equal to that," said Mr.
Leland, in a tone of unruffled good-nature.
"True; and the weapon of vituperation is generally used by those who lack brains for argument or are upon the wrong side," observed Mr. Dinsmore.
"Is that remark intended to apply to me sir?" asked Foster, drawing himself up with an air of hauteur and defiance.