paper. His attitude bespoke the comfortable
ease and carelessness of his mind, on which certainly nothing lay
heavy. His wife was in all things a contrast. Her handsome, stately
figure was yielding at the moment to no blandishments of comfort or
luxury; she sat upright, with Pitt's letter in her hand, and on her
brow there was an expression of troubled consideration.

'Husband,' she said at length, 'do you notice how Pitt speaks of the
colonel and his daughter?'

'No,' came slowly and indifferently from the lips of Mr. Dallas, as he
turned the pages of his newspaper.

'Don't you notice how he asks after them in every letter, and wants me
to go and see them?'

'Natural enough. Pitt is thinking of home, and he thinks of them;--part
of the picture.'

'That boy don't forget!'

'Give him time,' suggested Mr. Dallas, with a careless yawn.

'He has had some time,--a year and a half, and in Europe; and
distractions enough. But don't you know Pitt? He sticks to a thing even
closer than you do.'

'If he cares enough about it.'

'That's what troubles me, Hildebrand. I am afraid he does care. If he
comes home next summer and finds that girl-- Do you know how she is
growing up?'

'That is the worst of children,' said Mr. Dallas, in the same lazy way;
'they will grow up.'

'By next summer she will be--well, I don't know how old, but quite old
enough to take the fancy of a boy like Pitt.'

'I know Pitt's age. He will be twenty-two. Old enough to know better.
He isn't such a fool.'

'Such a fool as what?' asked Mrs. Dallas sharply. 'That girl is going
to be handsome enough to take any man's fancy, and hold it too. She is
uncommonly striking. Don't you see it?'

'Humph! yes, I see it.'

'Hildebrand, I do not want him to marry the daughter of a dissenting
colonel, with not money enough to dress her.'

'I do not mean he shall.'

'Then think how you are going to prevent it. Next summer, I warn you,
it may be too late.'

In consequence, perhaps, of this conversation, though it is by no means
certain that Mr. Dallas needed its suggestions, he strolled over after
tea to Colonel Gainsborough's. The colonel was in his usual place and
position; Esther sitting at the table with her books. Mr. Dallas eyed
her as she rose to receive him, noticed the gracious, quiet manner, the
fair and noble face, the easy movement and fine bearing; and turned to
her father with a strengthened purpose to do what he had come to do. He
had t