"So much for Marlboro's theories!" burst forth St. George, in a moment. "A man's works follow him. Sowing the wind and reaping the whirlwind is too much of a good thing. He has been away so long and so often, there has been such mismanagement under a long minority, such changes and such misrule, such a hard hand and such a high hand, that the whole place is a fester. How dares he prowl round the country so after nightfall? I wouldn't give a pin for his life this moment, if it weren't for that white defiance of his that would back him against a whole Ashantee tribe! If he were the coward that I am, he'd be a better master; but he's what the poor trash call a damned aristocrat,--which means an aristocrat past salvation, I take it." Eloise laughed to hear the words from Mr. St. George's autocratic lips. "It is very odd," said she, "that so formidable an aristocracy must needs underlie so powerful a democracy!" The night was clear and deep; great shadows floated down from the heavens, as if of beings travelling on the winds: one of those perfect seasons when the powers of the dark seem to be surprised at their work, although low in the horizon behind lay a glimmer, as if the hour were soon to bring forth its marvel,--a glimmer which made the whole more weird, and hung the very spirit of summer nights about them as they walked. "What should you have thought of yourself, Miss Eloise," said Mr. St. George, "if a year ago, you had seen your image prospected on the canvas of a dark and lonely highway, extremely late at night, or early in the morning,--as you choose,--with, for sole companion, a creature who indulges himself in pipes, porter, and parties, a usurper, a demagogue,--in fact, one who can be represented only as disreputable? A very improper young woman?" One year ago! The tears sprang to Eloise's eyes. She dared not look up, but let them fall from the downcast lashes. Yet Mr. St. George saw them. "And what is there, so painful in the picture, may I ask?" said he. "A year ago my father was alive, Mr. St. George." A change came over his face,--pallor like a soft cloud. "Yet you are better off than I," he said, with singular unreserve for him. "It is twelve times as long since _my_ father was with _me_. And you could hardly have worshipped the one more than I worship the memory of the other."