The more that is done for her the less well does she work.... Indy is
very unfortunate: going out with a present of money she lost every
penny. Of course she was incapable of work until the sum was replaced."
Elim paused with an impatient snort at this exhibition of
shiftlessness. If the negroes were not soon freed they would be ruined
beyond redemption. He read the remainder of the paper rigid and
unapproving. It gave, he considered, such an excellent picture of
Southern iniquities that he marked it B plus, the highest rating his
responsibility had allowed Rosemary Roselle. Now he was certain that
her very name held a dangerous potentiality--it came too easily to the
tongue; it had a wanton sound like a silk skirt.
The warm glow faded from the room; without, the tenuous and bare upper
branches of the maples wavered in the oncoming dusk. The river had
disappeared. Elim was acutely conscious of the approaching hour of
supper; and in preparation to go out to it he donned again the nankeen
waistcoat and solemn garment that had served his father so long and so
well.
IV
The following day was almost hot; at its decline coming across Winthrop
Common Elim was oppressed and weary. Nothing unusual was happening at
the boarding house; a small customary group was seated on the veranda
steps, and he joined it. The conversation hung exclusively to the
growing tension between North and South, to the forming of a
Confederate States of America in February, the scattered condition of
the Union forces, the probable fate of the forts in Charleston harbor.
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