Elizabeth sat silent a minute with a very disturbed look. Rose had gone back to her netting, only glancing up once in a while at the faces of the other two.
"Upon what plea does he pretend to hinder it, father?"
"A plea he won't be able to bear out, I fancy," said Mr. Haye, turning round in his chair so as to bring his other side to the fire, and not ceasing to look at the paper all this while.
"But what?"
"What does it signify what! Something you can't understand."
"I can understand it, father; and I want to know."
"A plea of fraud, on my part, in selling the cotton. I suppose you would like to cultivate his acquaintance after that."
Elizabeth sat back in her seat with a little start, and did not speak again during the conversation. Rose looked up from her mesh-stick and poured out a flood of indignant and somewhat incoherent words; to which Mr. Haye responded briefly, as a man who was not fond of the subject, and finally put an end to them by taking the paper and walking off. Elizabeth changed her position then for a low seat, and resting her chin on her hand sat looking into the fire with eyes in which there burned a dark glow that rivalled it.
"Lizzie," said her companion, "did you ever hear of such a thing!"
"Not 'such a thing,'" she answered.