"Well then, she will soon learn to do so, there is no doubt of that, now that she has seen how much you care for her."
Edgar smiled rather sadly. "I have succeeded in teaching her that there is no one in the world but her; but I have not yet taught her that there is no one in the world but me."
"She will soon learn it, never fear! with such a schoolmaster."
But poor Edgar did not feel quite so sure.
And Alice all the time was telling herself that since Edgar loved her so much, Paul was certain to love her too; an illogical argument, perhaps, but one most convincing to the normal female mind. She did not know, poor child! that with her own hands she had shut the door of the Eden which she coveted; and that the hands which have power to shut have not necessarily the power to open again.
Alas for us all that the gate of Eden is so hard to seek, and that so few succeed in finding it! And those of us who are fortunate enough to discover it, must take heed to our ways lest it close with a spring, and open to us never again, knock we never so loudly.
CHAPTER VI.
Esdaile Court.
Their ways were ways of pleasant grace,
They toiled not neither did they spin;
But since their smiles made glad the place,
Dare men of sterner cast of face
Account such carelessness a sin?
It was on a sunny September afternoon that Paul Seaton first saw Esdaile Court; and the mellowed Elizabethan house, with its stately avenues and large lake, was very pleasant to look upon in the autumn sunlight. On his arrival he was ushered by a stout and pompous butler into the drawing-room, where Lady Esdaile was taking tea with her son and daughter, aged respectively nine and fourteen. Lady Esdaile had been a great beauty in her day, and at eight-and-thirty was still a lovely woman.