words, in the look which went with them,
there was something very difficult for Esther to withstand. It was so
far from presuming, it was so delicate in its urgency, there was so
much wistfulness in it, and at the same time the whole magnetism of his
personal influence. Esther placed her hand within his, she could not
help that; the bright colour flamed up in her cheeks; words were not
ready.

'What are you thinking about?' said he.

'Papa,' Esther said, half aloud; but she was thinking of a thousand
things all at once.

'I'll undertake the colonel,' said he, going back to his drawing,
without letting go Esther's hand. 'Colonel Gainsborough is not a man to
be persuaded; but I think in this case he will be of my mind.'

He was silent again, and Esther was silent too, with her heart beating,
and a quiet feeling of happiness and rest gradually stealing into her
heart and filling it; like as the tide at flood comes in upon the empty
shore. Whatever her father might think upon the just mooted question,
those two hands had found each other, once and for all. Thoughts went
roving, aimlessly, meanwhile, as thoughts will, in such a flood-tide of
content. Pitt worked on rapidly. Then a word came to Esther's lips.

'Pitt, you have become quite an Englishman, haven't you?'

'No more than you are a Englishwoman.'

'I think, I am rather an American,' said Esther; 'I have lived here
nearly all my life.'

'Do you like New York?'

'I was not thinking of New York. Yes, I like it. I think I like any
place where my home is.'

'Would you choose your future home rather in Seaforth, or in London?
You know, _I_ am at home in both.'

Esther would not speak the woman's answer that rose to her lips, the
immediate response, that where he was would be what she liked best. It
flushed in her cheek and it parted her lips, but it came not forth in
words. Instead came a cairn question of business.

'What are the arguments on either side?'

'Well,' said Pitt, shaping his 'rock' with bold strokes of the pencil,
'in Seaforth the sun always shines, or that is my recollection of it.'

'Does it not shine in London?'

'No, as a rule.'

Esther thought it did not matter!

'Then, for another consideration, in Seaforth you would never see, I
suppose,--almost never,--sights of human distress. There are no poor
there.'

'And in London?'

'The distress is before you and all round you; and such distress as I
suppose your heart cannot imagine