Hills of the Shatemuc Part 102

"Who?"

"Winthrop Landholm."

"What for?"

"Why I want to _see_ him -- and so do you, Mr. Haye. Now Mr.

Haye, won't you? -- Though I don't know but Elizabeth would be the best one to ask him."

"Why?" dryly said the master of the house.

"I guess he'd be more likely to come."

"If I thought so, and it were my part to do it, I certainly should ask him," said Elizabeth. "There isn't any person so pleasant as he to take his place, among all that come here."

"You were glad of what Mr. Satterthwaite told us last night weren't you?" said Rose with a sinister smile.

"Very glad!"

"Did you ever hear Mr. Satterthwaite go on so about anybody?

One would have thought Mr. Landholm was his own brother. I wonder if that was for your sake, Lizzie?"

"I presume it was for his own sake," said Elizabeth. "I should think anybody who had the privilege of being Mr. Landholm's friend, would know how to value it."

"_You_ would value it, for instance, I suppose?"

"I have no doubt I should."

"It seems to me you are a little too sure of valuing it," said Mr. Haye, -- "for a young lady who has _not_ that privilege."

Elizabeth's cheeks burned on the instant, but her eye was steady, and it looked full on her father while she asked him,

"Why, sir?"

"It is not worth while for you to like other people faster than they like you?"

"Why not?" -- said Elizabeth, her cheek and eye both deepening in their fire, but her look as steady and full, -- "Why not? -- if it should happen that I am less likeable than they?"

"Pshaw!" said Mr. Haye.

"If I were to gauge the respect and esteem I give others, by the respect and esteem they might be able to give me, -- I should cut off maybe the best pleasures of my life."

"Are respect and esteem the best pleasures of your life?" said Rose satirically.

"I have never known any superior to them," said Elizabeth. But she brought, as she spoke, her eye of fire to bear upon her cousin, who gave way before it and was mum.

"And what may respect and esteem lead to?" said Mr. Haye.

"I don't know," said Elizabeth. "And I don't care -- even to ask."

"Suppose they are not returned?"

"I have supposed that in the first place," she answered.

"At that rate you might be over head and ears in your regard for several people at once, none of whom cared a straw for you," said Mr. Haye.

"When I find _several_, men or women, that deserve the sort of respect and esteem I am talking of," said Elizabeth -- "I am not talking of a common kind, that you can give common people -- I shall be in a new world!"

"And have you this sort of 'respect and esteem' for Mr.

Winthrop Landholm?" said her father.

"That's another question," said Elizabeth, for the first time dropping her eye and speaking more quietly; -- "I was talking of the general principle."

"And I am asking of the particular instance. Have you this respect and esteem for this particular person of your acquaintance?"

"I never gave it to many people in my life," said Elizabeth, colouring again somewhat. "He has as fair a share of it as most have."

"A little more?" said Mr. Haye smiling.

This time the answer she flashed at him was of proud and indignant bar to any further questioning -- with her eyes only; her lips did not move.

"Does he know it, Elizabeth?"

"Know what, sir?"

"This favour you have expressed for him."

"I have expressed nothing but what I would express for any one to whom I thought it due."

"But I ask, does he know it?"

"I feel injured, father, by your asking me such questions! -- I presume he does not know, since he has not had the honour of being told!"

The air with which this was given was regal.

"I wouldn't tell him, Lizzie," said her father quietly.

But at the insinuation conveyed in these words, Elizabeth's mood took another turn.

"I will tell whomsoever it may concern to know, at any time when I see occasion," she answered. "It is not a thing to be ashamed of; and I will neither do nor think anything I am unwilling to own."

"You had better reform public opinion in the first place,"

said Mr. Haye dryly.

"Why?" she said with startling quickness.

"It is apt to hold rather light of young ladies who tell their minds without being asked."

"How can you speak so, father! -- I said, _when I saw occasion_ -- it seems I have very much misjudged in the present instance."