"
said Eloise, with a more gracious air, and forgetting her wicked temper,
"you don't know the relief I feel! how free I am! no more figures! such
a sad weight off me that I could fly! You would be silly to be such a
Don Quixote as you threaten; it would do nobody any good, and would
prove the ruin of all these poor creatures for whom you are now
responsible. Don't you see?" said Eloise, taking a step nearer, and
positively smiling upon him. "It isn't now just as you like,--you have a
duty in the case. And as for me, good morning!"

And Eloise actually offered him her hand.

"One moment. Let me think."

And after her white flag of truce, there came a short cessation of
hostilities.

"Very well," said Mr. St. George Erne at last, looking up, and shaking
his strong shoulders like a Newfoundland dog coming out of the water.
"Let it be. I have, then, one other idea,--in fact, one other condition.
If I yield one thing, it is only right that you should yield another. It
is this. I am entirely unaccustomed to doing my own writing. My script
is illegible, even to myself. My amanuenses, my copyists, in Washington,
have cost me a mint of money. I find there are none of the servants, of
course, who write their names. I cannot afford, either, at present, to
buy a clerk from Charleston. And on the whole, if it would be agreeable
to you, I should be very glad if you would accept a salary,--such salary
as I find convenient,--and remain as my accountant. You will, perhaps,
receive this proposal with the more ease, as Mrs. Arles agrees to occupy
the same position as formerly in the house."

Those horrible accounts! And a master! Who said Marlboro' was a master?
What thing was Earl St. George Erne?--Yet too untaught to teach, too
finely bred to sew, too delicate to labor, perhaps not good enough to
starve,--

A quarter of an hour elapsed in dead silence.

Eloise threw back her head, and grew just a trifle more queenly, as she
answered,--

"I thank you. I will stay, Mr. Erne."

The last word had tripped on her tongue; it had been almost impossible
for her to give to another person her father's name, which she had never
been allowed to wear herself.

He noticed her hesitation, and said,--

"You can call me St. George. Everybody does,--Mrs. Arles, the servants
will. We have always been the St. Georges and the Disbrowes, for
generations. Besides, if you had really been my cousin's child, you
would naturally have called me so."