CHAPTER II.
HESTER MAULE.
Though the life of Hester Maule at Merlwood was a somewhat secluded one, as she had no mother to act as chaperone, it was not one of inaction. Her mornings were generally spent in charitable work among poor people in the nearest village, visiting the old and sick, sometimes in scolding and teaching the young, assisting the minister in many ways with local charities, and often winding up the evening by a brisk game of lawn-tennis with his young folks at the manse, and now and then a ball or a carpet dance at some adjacent house, when late hours never prevented her from being down from her room in the morning, as gay as a mavis or merle, to pour out her father's coffee, cut and air his paper, or attend to his hookah, the use of which the old Anglo-Indian had not yet been able to relinquish.
Now the girl had become shy or dry in manner, piqued and silent certainly, to her cousin; for, in mortifying contrast to her silent thoughts, she was pondering over his off-hand speech with which the preceding chapter opens; thus even he found it somewhat difficult to carry on a one-sided conversation with the back of her averted head, however handsome, with its large coil of dark and glossy hair turned to him.
Roland liked and more than admired his graceful cousin, and now, perhaps suspecting that his nonchalant manner was scarcely 'the thing' and finding her silent, even frosty in manner, he said:
'Hester, will you listen to me now?'
'That depends upon what you have to say, Roland.'
'I never say anything wrong, so don't be cross, my dear little one.'
'He treats me as a child still!' she thought in anger, and said sharply:
'Well?'
'Shall we go along the river bank and see the trout rising?'