What are those papers you've got there?'
Elizabeth's red cheeks showed her taken aback. It was the first time
for weeks that her employer had turned upon her so. She had grown so
accustomed to managing him, to taming the irritable temper that no
one else but she could cope with, and, unconsciously, so proud of
her success, that she was not prepared for this attack. She met it
meekly.
'I have a proposal here to submit to you, from ---- & Co.' (she
named a firm of timber-merchants famous throughout the Midlands).
'There is nothing in it--Captain Dell is certain--that would injure
the estate. You have such masses of timber! And, if you don't sell,
you may find it commandeered. You know what's happened to Lord
Radley?'
The Squire sulkily demanded to be informed. Elizabeth told the
story, standing at his desk, like a clerk making a report. It seemed
to enrage her auditor.
'This _accursed_ war!' he broke out, when she had finished--'it
makes slaves and idiots of us all. It must--it shall end!' And
marching tempestuously up and down, he went off into one of the
pessimist and pacifist harangues to which she was more or less
accustomed.
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