Part 54 (2/2)

'Then, papa,' said Esther, sinking down on her knees beside her father, and affectionately laying one hand on his knee, 'don't you see this makes things easy for us? I have a proposition. Will you listen to it?'

'A proposition! Say on.'

'It is evident that we must take some step to bring our receipts and expenses into harmony. Your going without fruit and fish will not do it, papa; and I do not like that way of saving, besides. I had rather make one large change--cut off one or two large things--than a mult.i.tude of small ones. It is easier, and pleasanter. Now, so long as we live in this house we are obliged to keep a horse; and so long as we have a horse we must have Christopher, or some other man; and so long as we keep a horse and a man we _must_ make this large outlay, that we cannot afford. Papa, I propose we move into the city.'

'Move! Where?' asked the colonel, with a very unedified expression.

'We could find a house in the city somewhere, papa, from which I could walk to Miss Fairbairn's. That could not be difficult.'

'Who is to find the house?'

'Could not you, papa? Buonaparte would take you all over; the driving would not do you any harm.'

'I have no idea where to begin,' said the colonel, rubbing his head in uneasy perplexity.

'I will find out that, papa. I will speak to Miss Fairbairn; she is a great woman of business. She will tell me.'

The colonel still rubbed his head thoughtfully. Esther kept her position, in readiness for some new objection. The next words, however, surprised her.

'I have sometimes thought,'--the colonel's fingers were all the while going through and through his hair; the action indicating, as such actions do, the mental movement and condition, 'I have sometimes thought lately that perhaps I was doing you a wrong in keeping you here.'

'_Here_, papa?--in New York?'

'No. In America.'

'In America! Why, sir?'

'Your family, my family, are all on the other side. You would have friends if you were there,--you would have opportunities,--you would not be alone. And in case I am called away, you would be in good hands.

I do not know that I have the right to keep you here.'

'Papa, I like to be where you like to be. Do not think of that. Why did we come away from England in the first place?'

The colonel was silent, with a gloomy brow.

'It was nothing better than a family quarrel,' he said.

'About what? Do you mind telling me, papa?'

'No, child; you ought to know. It was a quarrel on the subject of religion.'

'How, sir?'

'Our family have been Independents from all time. But my father married a second wife, belonging to the Church of England. She won him over to her way of thinking. I was the only child of the first marriage; and when I came home from India I found a houseful of younger brothers and sisters, all belonging, of course, to the Establishment, and my father with them. I was a kind of outlaw. The advancement of the family was thought to depend very much on the stand I would take, as after my father's death I would be the head of the family. At least my stepmother made that a handle for her schemes; and she drove them so successfully that at last my father declared he would disinherit me if I refused to join him.'

'In being a Church of England man?'

'Yes.'

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