"We shall not have poverty or want to undergo," said my father quickly, with a little impatience, "we will have to endure _downfall_, Hester--overthrow, exile and banishment--worse things than want or poverty. We shall have to endure--child, child, go to your child's rest, and close those bright, questioning eyes of yours! You do not understand what this grievous calamity is to me!" I withdrew from him a little, pained and cast down, while he rose once more, and paced the room with measured steps. I watched his lofty figure retiring into the darkness and returning to the light with reverence and awe. He was not a country gentleman dispossessed of his property to my overstrained imagination, but a king compelled to abdicate, a sovereign prince banished from his dominions; and his own feelings were as romantic, as exalted, I might say as exaggerated as mine. After a little while he returned to me, restored to his usual composure. "It is time to go to rest, Hester--good-night. In the morning I will know better what this is; and to-morrow--to-morrow," he drew a long breath as he stooped over me, "to-morrow we will gird ourselves for our overthrow. Good-night!" And this was now the night-fall on the first day which I can detach and separate from all the childhood and youthful years before it--the beginning of the days of my life. THE SECOND DAY. It was late in October, and winter was coming fast; in all the paths about Cottiswoode the fallen leaves lay thick, and every breath of air brought them down in showers. But though these breezes were so melancholy at night when they moaned about the house, as if in lamentation for us, who were going away, in the morning when the sun was out the chilled gale was only bracing and full of wild pleasure, as it blew full over the level of our moors, with nothing to break its force for miles.