"Of course not," said Ellerton, acquiescently. "I should not speak of it on any account."
"And, Michael, my man," continued Victor, putting his hand in his pocket, "whist's the word about this little adventure, you know."
Michael touched his hat, and, pocketing the coin that Victor tossed him, promised absolute silence on the subject.
The horses, as we came up the avenue, slackened their pace, and gave us time to look around. Sunset, starlight moonlight, had neither of them abdicated the bright June sky, but all combined to light up the picture for us, and make the lake a sheet of silver, and the dark, old house as fair as it could be made.
"A fine old place, indeed," said Victor, with a temporary shade of seriousness on his face. "It must be pleasant to have such an ancestral home as that. These Rutledges are a high family, are they not?"
"One of the very best in the State;" answered Ellerton, feeling that "family" was always a toast to which he was called upon to respond. "There are very few in the country who can go back so far. The Rutledges have always been very exclusive, and held themselves very high, and so have never lost their position."
"Ha!" said Victor, with a little darkening of the brow. "That's the style, is it? Our host, then, is a proud man, I am to understand—one who values birth, and that sort of thing, and plumes himself upon it, and regards with a proper scorn all who have come into the world under less favorable auspices than himself."
"Exactly," said Ellerton. "I think that's Rutledge exactly. He's what you'd call a regular aristocrat, and proud as Lucifer himself."
"I kiss his hand!" cried Victor, with a dash of bitterness in his tone. "Commend me to such a man as that! I reverence his largeness of soul, his nobility of nature! I long to show him in what esteem I hold him."
"I think you mistake Mr. Rutledge," I began eagerly; but before I had time to say another word we were at the door, and Mr. Rutledge himself, descending the steps quickly, and speaking with some anxiety, exclaimed: