'Would you like to go to live in Seaforth again, Esther?'
'Seaforth, papa?' she repeated, much wondering at the question. 'No, I think not. I loved Seaforth once—dearly!—but we had friends there then; or we thought we had. I do not think it would be pleasant to be there now.'
'Then what do you think of our going back to England? You do not like this way of life, I suppose, in this pitiful place? I have kept you here too long!'
What had stirred the colonel up to so much speculation? Esther hesitated.
'Papa, I know our friends there seem very eager to have us; and so far it would be good; but—if we went back, have we enough to live upon and be independent?'
'No.'
'Then I would rather be here. We are doing very nicely, papa; you are comfortable, are you not? I am very well placed, and earning money—enough money. Really we are not poor any longer. And it is so nice to be independent!'
'Not poor!' said the colonel, between a groan and a growl. 'What do you call poor? For you and for me to be in this doleful street is to be all that, I should say.'
'Papa,' said Esther, her lips wreathing into a smile, 'I think nobody is poor who can live and pay his debts. And we have no debts at all.'
'By dint of hard work on your part, and deprivation on mine!'