“Did she bring the boy here last night? I saw you drive off with him in the carriage.”
“Yes, she makes a regular pet of the little ragamuffin—it's perfectly sickening!”
“Who were the two men with him?”
“One of 'em calls himself judge Price; the other kept out of the way, I didn't hear his name.”
“Is the boy going to stay at Belle Plain?” inquired Murrell.
“That notion hasn't struck her yet, for I heard her say at breakfast that she'd take him to Raleigh this afternoon.”
“That's the boy I traveled all the way to North Carolina to get for Fentress. I thought I had him once, but the little cuss gave me the slip.”
“Eh—you don't say?” cried Ware.
“Tom, what do you know about the Quintard lands; what do you know about Quintard himself?” continued Murrell.
“He was a rich planter, lived in North Carolina. My father met him when he was in congress and got him to invest in land here. They had some colonization scheme on foot this was upward of twenty years ago—but nothing came of it. Quintard lost interest.”