'Ha! did he ever make you an offer? I have sometimes suspected it.'
'No indeed! It was much—much more beautiful than that!'
'Our mother then? I had thought of that too, and it accounts for his having always taken to you the most of us.'
'Why, I'm the least like her of us all!'
'So they say, I know, and I can't recollect enough to judge, except that'—and Tom's voice was less clear for a moment—'there was something in being with her that I've never found again, except now and then with you, Ethel. Well, he never got over it, I suppose.'
And Ethel briefly told of the rash resolution, the unsettled life, the neglect of the father's wishes, the grievous remorse, the broken health, and restless aimless wanderings, ending at last in loving tendance of the bereaved rival. It had been a life never wanting in generosity or benevolence, yet falling far short of what it might have been—a gallant voyage made by a wreck—and yet the injury had been less from the disappointment than from the manner of bearing it. Suddenly it struck her that Tom might suspect her of intending a personal application of the history, and she faltered; but he kept her to it by his warm interest and many questions.
'And oh, Tom, he must not be allowed to go away in this manner! Nothing would so cut papa to the heart!'
'I don't believe he ever will, Ethel. He may go on for years as he is; and he said in the midst that he meant to live to carry out the drainage. Besides, if it comes gradually on him, he may feel dependent and lose the energy to move.'
'Oh! what a sorrow for papa! But I know that not to watch over him would make it all the worse.'
They walked on gravely till, on the top of the hill, Tom exclaimed, 'They've mounted the flag on the Minster steeple already.'