Elizabeth's face was a study; for the fire in her eyes shone through water, and every feature was alive. But her lips only moved to tremble.
"I won't stay here!" said Rose. "I'll go away and do something. I don't care what I do. I dare say there's enough left for me to live upon; and I can do without Emma. I can live somehow, if not quite as well as you do."
"Hush, Rose, and keep a little sense along with you," said
Elizabeth.
"There must be enough left for me somehow," Rose went on, sobbing. "Nobody had any right to take my money. It was mine. Nobody else had a right to it. It is mine. I ought to have it."
"Rose! —"
Rose involuntarily looked up at the speaker who was standing before her, fire flashing from eye and lip, like the relations of Queen Gulnare in the fairy story.
"Rose! — do not dare speak to me in that way! — ever again! — whatever else you do. I will leave you to get back your senses."
With very prompt and decided action, Miss Haye sought her rowing gloves in her own room, put them on, and went down to the rocks where the Merry-go-round lay. She stopped not to look at anything; she loosened the boat and pushed out into the water. And quick and smartly the oars were pulled, till the skiff was half way over the river towards Mr. Underhill's house. Suddenly there they stopped. Elizabeth's eyes were bent on the water about two yards from the stern of the boat; while the paddles hung dripping, dripping more and more slowly, at the sides, and the little skiff floated gently up with the tide. But if Elizabeth's eyes were looking into nature, it was her own; her face grew more settled and grave and then sorrowful every minute; and at last the paddle-handles were thrown across the boat and her arms and her head rested upon them. And the little skiff floated gently up stream.
It had got some distance above Mr. Underhill's, when its mistress lifted her head and looked about, with wet eyelashes, to see where she was. Then the boat's head was turned, and some steady pulling brought her to the gravelly beach in front of Mr. Underhill's house. Its owner was luckily there to help her out.
"Well, I declare that's clever of you," said he, as he grasped the bow of the little vessel to draw it further up. "I didn't much expect you'd come when I asked you. Why you can row, real smart."