There was a good deal in the ensuing pause. For Éloise, in her single year, had not half learned the neighborhood's gossip.
"A cruel man. Then it's not to be thought of. We shall have to buy Vane. Though how it's to be done"—
"I didn't say he was a cruel man. He wouldn't think of interfering with an ordinance of his overseers. I esteem his thoroughness. He has ideas. But I might have said that he is a remarkable man."
"There'll be some pulling of caps soon, Hazel said to-day, in her gibberish. I couldn't think what she meant."
"Blue Bluffs is a place to be mistress of. He's a woman-hater, though, Mr. Marlboro',—believes in no woman capable of resisting him when he flings the handkerchief, should he choose, but believes in none worth choosing."
"We shall have to invite him here, Mrs. Arles," said Éloise, mischievously, "and show him that there are two of us."
"That would never do!"
"Oh, I didn't mean so. Of course, I didn't mean so. How could I see any one else sitting in"—And there were tears in her eyes and on her trembling tones.
"My dear," said Mrs. Arles, "I am afraid, apropos of nothing at all, that you have isolated yourself from all society for too long a time already."
Just here Hazel entered and replenished the hearth, stopping half-way, with her armful of brush, to coquet an instant in the mirror, and adjust the scarlet love-knot in her curls.