"No, childie, I know you don't. I am debating in my mind whether or not to tell you."
Esther looked up again with the same shade of perplexity in her eyes, but she asked no further question. She knew she would be told if Mr. Trelawny thought it well.
At last he spoke, but rather as though to himself and not to her. It was as if he were debating some point in his own mind.
"I don't know why she should not be told. The Queen was no older when she found out that in all probability she would one day have a kingdom to rule, and her first wish and resolve were that she might grow up a good woman. I believe it would be the same with this child in a very little kingdom. I want her to grow up feeling what are the duties which will some day be hers."
Esther's heart was beating rather fast by this time. She felt as though something momentous was going to be spoken, and she was not wrong. They had reached the terrace by this time, and with the shelter of the house behind them, and the sunlight falling full upon it, the place was quite warm—so warm that Mr. Trelawny seated himself under the veranda, and drew the little girl between his knees.
"My dear," he said, "I suppose you are too young ever to have wondered who will live at the Crag after I am gone."
Esther did not speak. It had certainly never entered her head to think about such a thing as this.
"I am the last of the Trelawnys," continued the old man; "I have not a single blood relation of that name to come after me. Once I thought it would be otherwise. For three happy years I had a wife living with me here, and a little boy who had just learned to call me 'daddy.' Then they were both taken away. It was all so long ago that the folks here have almost forgotten, and some of them speak of me as a bachelor. But I have never forgotten. I never could care for anybody else. I have lived my life alone, and I have nobody to come after me—nobody to love me now."
Esther suddenly raised the hand she held and carried it to her lips.
"We all love you, Uncle Robert," she said softly.