me, my child.'

'Papa, when should I not need you?' cried Esther, feeling as if her
breath were taken away by this view of things.

'The children grow up to be independent of the parents,' said the
colonel, somewhat abstractly. 'It is the way of nature. It must be; for
the old pass away, and the young step forward to fill their places.
What I wish is that you should get ready to fill your place well. That
is what we have come here for. We have taken the step, and we cannot go
back.'

'Couldn't we, papa? if New York is not good for you?'

'No, my dear. We have sold our Seaforth place.'

'Mr. Dallas would sell it back again.'

'I shall not ask him. And neither do I desire to have it back, Esther.
I have come here on good grounds, and on those grounds I shall stay.
How I personally am affected by the change is of little consequence.'

The colonel, having by this time finished his third slice of toast and
drunk up his tea, turned to his book. Esther remained greatly chilled
and cast down. Was her advantage to be bought at the cost of shortening
her father's life? Was her rich enjoyment of study and mental growth to
be balanced by suffering and weariness on his part?--every day of her
new life in school to be paid for by such a day's price at home? Esther
could not bear to think it. She sat pondering, chewing the bitter cud
of these considerations. She longed to discuss them further, and get
rid, if possible, of her father's dismal conclusions; but with him she
could not, and there was no other. When her father had settled and
dismissed a subject, she could rarely re-open a discussion upon it. The
colonel was an old soldier; when he had delivered an opinion, he had in
a sort given his orders; to question was almost to be guilty of
insubordination. He had gone back to his book, and Esther dared not say
another word; all the more her thoughts burnt within her, and for a
long time she sat musing, going over a great many things besides those
they had been talking of.

'Papa,' she said, once when the colonel stirred and let his book fall
for a minute, 'do you think Pitt Dallas will come home at all?'

'William Dallas! why should he not come home? His parents will want to
see him. I have some idea they expect him to come over next summer.'

'To _stay_, papa?'

'To stay the vacation. He will go back again, of course, to keep his
terms.'

'At Oxford?'

'Yes; and perhaps afterwards in the Temple.'

'The Temple, pa