'Have the same exigencies come near you?'
He smiled. 'No. I am sound yet.'
'ButI have heard business enough talked, if I could only remember it!does not such a state of things by and by touch all goods and mills and mill-owners?'
'Sometimes. But nothing threatens me at present. Perhaps Charteris is less strong than he has been supposed. Perhaps he has been speculating.'
Hazel finished her flowers with another touch or two, and gathering up the scattered rose leavescrimson and white and buffshowered them gently down upon the hand that rested near her on the table. Then she glanced up with a laugh.
'You know,' she said, 'the Charteris mills are my department.'
'Indeed! How am I to understand that statement?'
'Oyou thought Christmas was not susceptible of extensions.
Gentlemen's ideas, being so strong, sometimes move slowly.'
'Ladies' thoughts, being so subtle, are sometimes difficult to pursue,' said Dane; but his brow was grave.
'I am talking nonsense,' said the girl, 'but I mean sense. There is money enough,and those people cannot starve, either with hunger or cold. And you have all your own men on your own hands,andI begin to understand what Dr. Arthur meant by "possible corners." Don't you see that the other part of the Hollow falls naturally to me? What is the matter? Are you afraid I will support them on pound-cake and sugarplums?'