'Decidedly. My chest always feels here a certain oppression. I suppose there is too much sea air.'
'Was not the sea quite as near them at Seaforth, and salt air quite as much at hand?' Esther thought. However, as she did not put entire faith in the truth of her father's conclusions, it was no use to question his premises.
'Papa,' she said suddenly, 'suppose we go back to Seaforth?'
'Suppose nonsense!'
'No, sir; but I do not mean it as nonsense. I have had one year's schooling—that will be invaluable to me; now with books I can go on by myself. I can, indeed, papa, and will. You shall not need to be ashamed of me.'
'You are talking foolishly, Esther.'
'I do not mean it foolishly, papa. If we have not the means to live here, and if the Seaforth air is so much better for you, then there is nothing to keep us here but my schooling; and that, as I tell you, I can manage without. And I can manage right well, papa; I have got so far that I can go on alone now. I am seventeen; I am not a child any longer.'
There was a few minutes' silence, but probably that fact, that Esther was a child no longer, impelled the colonel to show her a little more consideration.
'Where would you go?' he asked, a trifle drily.
'Surely we could find a place, papa. Couldn't you, perhaps, buy back the old house—the dear old house!—as Mr. Dallas took it to accommodate you? I guess he would give it up again.'