pa? what is that?'

'A school of law. Do you not know so much, Esther?'

'Is he going to be a lawyer?'

'His father wishes him to study for some profession, and in that he is
as usual judicious. The fact that William will have a great deal of
money does not affect the matter at all. It is my belief that every man
ought to have a profession. It makes him more of a man.'

'Do you think Pitt will end by being an Englishman, papa?'

'I can't tell, my dear. That would depend on circumstances, probably. I
should think it very likely, and very natural.'

'But he _is_ an American.'

'Half.'

The colonel took up his book again.

'Papa,' said Esther eagerly, 'do you think Pitt will come to see us
here?'

'Come to see us? If anything brings him to New York, I have no doubt he
will look us up.'

'You do not think he would come all the way on purpose? Papa, he would
be very much changed if he did not.'

'Impossible to say, my dear. He is very likely to have changed.' And
the colonel went back to his reading.

'Papa does not care about it,' thought Esther. 'Oh, can Pitt be so much
changed as that?'

CHAPTER XXII.

_A QUESTION_.

The identically same doubt busied some minds in another quarter, where
Mr. and Mrs. Dallas sat expecting their son home. They were not so much
concerned with it through the winter; the Gainsboroughs had been
happily got rid of, and were no longer in dangerous proximity; that was
enough for the time. But as the spring came on and the summer drew
nigh, the thought would recur to Pitt's father and mother, whether
after all they were safe.

'He mentions them in every letter he writes,' Mrs. Dallas said. She and
her husband were sitting as usual in their respective easy chairs on
either side of the fire. Not for that they were infirm, for there was
nothing of that; they were only comfortable. Mrs. Dallas was knitting
some bright wools, just now mechanically, and with a knitted brow; her
husband's brow showed no disturbance. It never did.

'That's habit,' he answered to his wife's remark.

'But habit with Pitt is a tenacious thing. What will he do when he
comes home and finds they are gone?'

'Make himself happy without them, I expect.'

'It wouldn't be like Pitt.'

'You knew Pitt two and a half years ago. He was a boy then; he will be
a man now.'

'Do you expect the man will be different from the boy?'

'Generally are. And Pitt has been going through a process.'

'I can s