And before she could utter a syllable of deprecation, she had swung a brief moment in the air, and was upon the other side, up which Mr. St. George, in his high seven-league boots, clambered so soon as he had set her down. Instead of venturing any new display of indignation, as St. George expected, Eloise walked on with him quietly a moment, and then, looking up, said,-- "You are very kind, and I am very ungracious." Mr. St. George did not deny her assertion, only he glanced down at her from his height a second with an inexplicable expression, and immediately after the house became visible bowed low and left her. "There's been such a tantrum, Miss," said the quadroon Hazel, combing out Eloise's hair that night, "and Massa St. George's horse waited two mortal hours to take him to Blue Bluffs. You ought to have heard him swear! He galloped off at last like mad." And as Eloise gave no response, unless the cloud on her face spoke for her in the glass, the familiar girl added,-- "Not at you, Miss, not swearing at you,--oh, no, indeed!--but at all of us, to think we'd let you go alone." "Mr. St. George is too solicitous. That will do, Hazel. Have you spoken to your master about buying Vane?" "Laws, Miss, I never feels as if he was any master of mine, leastwise excep' one can't help minding him. 'S different from ole Massa,--we minded ole Massa for lub,--but I dunno if it's the music, when Massa St. George speaks, that makes you do what he says, when you just don't mean to,--as if you couldn't help it, and didn't want to help it?" suggested Hazel. "Mr. St. George," said Eloise, "is very good to his people; they ought to wish to obey him." "Yes, Miss. On'y he a'n't no business _here_." "Don't let me hear you speak so again, Hazel," said Eloise, facing the suddenly cringing girl. "Now you can go." But Hazel lingered still, over one and another odd trifle, and at length glancing up from where she stooped, with a scarlet on her young tawny cheek, she added, in a low voice,-- "You'll speak to Massa St. George now for me, won't you, Miss?" "What? About Vane? You would do better yourself. Yes." Two or three days passed away after this little promise to Hazel, before Eloise, at first forgetting it, and then dreading it, could gather courage to proceed in the negotiations for the handmaiden's suit. She was vaguely aware that she was the last person in the world whose past conduct harmonized with the asking of favors, and she silently offered slight propitiatory sacrifices. Yet she did this so haughtily, in order still not to compromise her own dignity, that they would quite as well have answered the purpose of belligerent signals.