"Did you have a pleasant visit?" the girl asked.
"Yes, very; but it was so warm over there under the hills that I was glad when the time came to leave."
"Does that Englishman still live alone on the Jasper place?"
"Yes, with his straight pipe and Scotch whisky. Perdue says that he appears to be perfectly contented there all alone."
"Have they found out anything about him?"
"No, only what he has been pleased to tell, and that isn't much. It seems that he is the younger son of a good family strayed off from home to better his condition."
"But why should he try to raise cotton when they say there is so little money in it, and especially when it requires experience? And the climate must be trying on him?"
"No, he says that the climate agrees with him. He has lived in India. He is reading American history and is much taken with the part the South has borne, so I learned from Mr. Perdue. He did not expect to find so little prejudice against foreigners. I could have told him that, in the South, an Englishman is scarcely looked upon as a foreigner—that is, among the best people."
They talked about many things that concerned them but little, of a new steamboat that had just entered upon the commerce of the lower river, of a cotton gin that was burned the night before, of the Catholic priest who had come to gather the negroes into his church; and surely they were far from a mention of Pennington. But suddenly Louise moved with uneasiness, for she had caught something that had not been said, that had not been looked, and, springing to her feet, she almost threw herself upon her mother, and with her arms about her, she cried: "Please don't say a word; please don't. I can argue with father, but I can't argue with you, for you take everything so to heart and suffer so much. Please don't speak anybody's name—don't say that father has said anything to you about anybody. You mustn't cry, either. Leave it all to me, and if I was born to wring your dear heart—there, let us hush."
She straightened up, putting the hair out of her eyes, and the silent and stately woman sat there with the tears rolling down her face. "Please don't, mother. You'll make me think I'm the meanest creature in the world. And I don't know but that I am, but I can't help it. Just call me unnatural, as you have done so many times, and let it all go. There, just listen at father walking up and down the porch; and I know he's mad at me."