he colonel, with a very unedified expression.

'We could find a house in the city somewhere, papa, from which I could
walk to Miss Fairbairn's. That could not be difficult.'

'Who is to find the house?'

'Could not you, papa? Buonaparte would take you all over; the driving
would not do you any harm.'

'I have no idea where to begin,' said the colonel, rubbing his head in
uneasy perplexity.

'I will find out that, papa. I will speak to Miss Fairbairn; she is a
great woman of business. She will tell me.'

The colonel still rubbed his head thoughtfully. Esther kept her
position, in readiness for some new objection. The next words, however,
surprised her.

'I have sometimes thought,'--the colonel's fingers were all the while
going through and through his hair; the action indicating, as such
actions do, the mental movement and condition, 'I have sometimes
thought lately that perhaps I was doing you a wrong in keeping you
here.'

'_Here_, papa?--in New York?'

'No. In America.'

'In America! Why, sir?'

'Your family, my family, are all on the other side. You would have
friends if you were there,--you would have opportunities,--you would
not be alone. And in case I am called away, you would be in good hands.
I do not know that I have the right to keep you here.'

'Papa, I like to be where you like to be. Do not think of that. Why did
we come away from England in the first place?'

The colonel was silent, with a gloomy brow.

'It was nothing better than a family quarrel,' he said.

'About what? Do you mind telling me, papa?'

'No, child; you ought to know. It was a quarrel on the subject of
religion.'

'How, sir?'

'Our family have been Independents from all time. But my father married
a second wife, belonging to the Church of England. She won him over to
her way of thinking. I was the only child of the first marriage; and
when I came home from India I found a houseful of younger brothers and
sisters, all belonging, of course, to the Establishment, and my father
with them. I was a kind of outlaw. The advancement of the family was
thought to depend very much on the stand I would take, as after my
father's death I would be the head of the family. At least my
stepmother made that a handle for her schemes; and she drove them so
successfully that at last my father declared he would disinherit me if
I refused to join him.'

'In being a Church of England man?'

'Yes.'

'But, papa, that was very unjust!'