bserve me?"

"Why?" asked Dick.

"It is a fancy; you forget, I am romantic about fathers."

The hint was enough for Dick; he consented with haste, and full of
hang-dog penitence and disgust, took her down by a back way and planted
her in the shrubbery, whence she might see the Squire ride by to dinner.
There they both sat silent, but holding hands, for nearly half an hour.
At last the trotting of a horse sounded in the distance, the park gates
opened with a clang, and then Mr. Naseby appeared, with stooping
shoulders and a heavy, bilious countenance, languidly rising to the
trot. Esther recognised him at once; she had often seen him before,
though with her huge indifference for all that lay outside the circle of
her love, she had never so much as wondered who he was; but now she
recognised him, and found him ten years older, leaden and springless,
and stamped by an abiding sorrow.

"O Dick, Dick!" she said, and the tears began to shine upon her face as
she hid it in his bosom; his own fell thickly too. They had a sad walk
home, and that night, full of love and good counsel, Dick exerted every
art to please his father, to convince him of his respect and affection,
to heal up this breach of kindness, and reunite two hearts. But alas!
the Squire was sick and peevish; he had been all day glooming over
Dick's estrangement--for so he put it to himself, and now with growls,
cold words, and the cold shoulder, he beat off all advances, and
entrenched himself in a just resentment.

CHAPTER V

THE PRODIGAL FATHER MAKES HIS DEBUT AT HOME

That took place upon a Thursday. On the Thursday following, as Dick was
walking by appointment, earlier than usual, in the direction of the
cottage, he was appalled to meet in the lane a fly from Thymebury,
containing the human form of Miss M'Glashan. The lady did not deign to
remark him in her passage; her face was suffused with tears, and
expressed much concern for the packages by which she was surrounded. He
stood still, and asked himself what this circumstance might portend. It
was so beautiful a day that he was loth to forecast evil, yet something
must perforce have happened at the cottage, and that of a decisive
nature; for here was Miss M'Glashan on her travels, with a small
patrimony in brown paper parcels, and the old lady's bearing implied hot
battle and unqualified defeat. Was the house to be closed against him?
Was Esther left alone, or had some new protector made his a