'Do they know their own minds, these two young fools?'
He often thought sadly and seriously of Hester's future, for he had been an improvident man; his funds and his pensions passed away with himself; thus it was with very unalloyed delight that he watched the pair together again as in the days of their childhood, and he wove many a castle in the air; but they all assumed the form of a certain turreted mansion in the East Neuk of Fife. Then he would add to Hester's annoyance by saying to her in a caressing and blundering way:
'He will love you very dearly, as he ought to do, some day, my pet; and if you don't love him just now, you also will in time. Your poor mother would have liked it—Roland was ever her favourite.'
'Please not to say these things, papa,' implored Hester, though they were alone, and she caressed his old white head, for Sir Harry seldom or never spoke of her mother, whose death occurred some twelve years before, without an emotion which he could not conceal, for he was gentle and loving by nature.
'Bother the fellow!' said Sir Harry testily, ashamed that his voice had broken and his eyes grown full; 'he should know his own heart by this time.'
'I would rather, papa, you did not say such things.'
'Well—I can't help thinking of them, and you have no one to confide in, Pet Hester, but me,' he added, drawing her head down on his breast.
'If it will make you any happier, dear papa,' said Hester in a very low voice, 'I will promise to do as you wish, if Roland asks me to love him, which he has not done yet. Anyway, it does not matter,' she added, a little irrelevantly; 'I care for no one else.'
'Not even for Malcolm of Dunnimarle?' he asked laughingly.
'No, papa—not even for Malcolm Skene.'