“Partly, but do you not know the hope which makes all work sweet to me?” And the look of his eyes, and his hand seeking hers, made her say,
“Oh don’t, Robert, I mustn’t.”
“Nay, my queen, you were too duteous to hearken to me when I was rich and prosperous. I would not torment you then, I meant to be patient; but now I am poor and going into banishment, you will be generous and compassionate, and let me hear the one word that will make my exile sweet.”
“I don’t think I ought,” said the poor child under her breath. “O, Robert, don’t you know I ought not.”
“Would you if that ugly cypher of an ought did not stand in the way?”
“Oh don’t ask me, Robert; I don’t know.”
“But I do know, my queen,” said he. “I know my little Essie better than she knows herself. I know her true heart is mine, only she dares not avow it to herself; and when hearts have so met, Esther, they owe one another a higher duty than the filial tie can impose.”
“I never heard that before,” she said, puzzled, but not angered.
“No, it is not a doctrine taught in schoolrooms, but it is true and universal for all that, and our fathers and mothers acted on it in their day, and will give way to it now.”
Esther had never been told all her father’s objections to her cousin. Simple prohibition had seemed to her parents sufficient for the gentle, dutiful child. Bobus had always been very kind to her, and her heart went out enough to him in his trouble to make coldness impossible to her. Tears welled into her eyes with perplexity at the new theory, and she could only falter out—