"Oh, yes, it is something about you," he said with a laugh. Then after a pause, "But you have some insight all the same. No. I'll tell you what it is; it is money, money, Hester—that is what we all want. If you had it you would no more marry Harry than old Rule; if I had it——And the thing clear is that I must have it," said Edward, breaking off abruptly. "I can't wait."
Hester went home very much bewildered, outraged by all he said, yet more sorry than angry. He had not made any reply to her appeal for his confidence, yet she knew that she was right—that it was out of a troubled and miserable heart that he had spoken, not merely out of wounded feeling on the subject of herself. She did not know whether he understood what she said to him on the subject of Harry, or if that penetrated his mind at all; but she went home at once more miserable and more interested than she thought she had ever been in her life. Had not she too drawn some conclusion of the same kind from her own experiences, from the atmosphere of the Vernonry so full of ingratitude, unkindness, and all uncharitableness? She came very slowly home, and took no notice of the way in which Mildmay Vernon squinted at her from his corner, and the Miss Ridgways waved their hands from the window. Harry then had not come home with her. "I knew he was not such a fool," the male observer said to himself, and the sisters laughed and talked in quite an outburst of gaiety for some time after. "Harry Vernon think of that girl! of course he did not. Who would? so ill brought up, with such manners, and hair that is nearly red," they said.
[CHAPTER XVI.]
WALKS AND TALKS.
"They tell me you are to be congratulated, Hester," said old Captain Morgan.
She had met him taking his evening walk, and in that and in his aspect altogether there was something altogether despondent—a depression and air of weakness which was not common with the old man. She had not gone with him for some days, and perhaps he had felt the desertion. The first thing Hester did was to draw his hand within her arm.
"You are tired," she said.
"Not very. I am a silly old fellow and always go too far. I have been thinking of you, my dear; and if you are to be congratulated——"