indeed, papa, and will. You shall not need to be ashamed
of me.'

'You are talking foolishly, Esther.'

'I do not mean it foolishly, papa. If we have not the means to live
here, and if the Seaforth air is so much better for you, then there is
nothing to keep us here but my schooling; and that, as I tell you, I
can manage without. And I can manage right well, papa; I have got so
far that I can go on alone now. I am seventeen; I am not a child any
longer.'

There was a few minutes' silence, but probably that fact, that Esther
was a child no longer, impelled the colonel to show her a little more
consideration.

'Where would you go?' he asked, a trifle drily.

'Surely we could find a place, papa. Couldn't you, perhaps, buy back
the old house--the dear old house!--as Mr. Dallas took it to
accommodate you? I guess he would give it up again.'

'My dear, do not say "guess" in that very provincial fashion! I shall
not ask Mr. Dallas to play at buying and selling in such a way. It
would be trifling with him. I should be ashamed to do it. Besides, I
have no intention of going back to Sea forth till your education is
ended; and by that time--if I live to see that time--I shall have so
little of life left that it will not matter where I spend it.'

Esther did not know how to go on.

'Papa, could we not do without Buonaparte? I could get to school some
other way?'

'How?'

Esther pondered. 'Could I not arrange to go in Mrs. Blumenfeld's
waggon, when it goes in Monday morning?'

'Who is Mrs. Blumenfeld?'

'Why, papa, she is the woman that has the market garden over here. You
know.'

'Do I understand you aright?' said the colonel, laying his book down
for the moment and looking over at his daughter. 'Are you proposing to
go into town with the cabbages?'

'Papa, I do not mind. I would not mind at all, if it would be a relief
to you. Mrs. Blumenfeld's waggon is very neat.'

'My dear, I am surprised at you!'

'Papa, I would do _anything_, rather than give you trouble. And, after
all, I should be just as much myself, if I did go with the cabbages.'

'We will say no more about it, if you please,' said the colonel, taking
up his book again.

'One moment, papa! one word more. Papa, I am so afraid of doing
something I ought not. Can you not give me a hint, what sort of
proportion our expenditures ought to bear to our old ways?'

'There is the rent, and the keeping of the horse, to be made good.
Those are additions t