"What is the matter, papa?" I said, anxiously, "what is wrong? what has happened? do you think this is not my cousin, or are you angry that he has come? Father, you loved my uncle Brian, do you not love his son?" "Hester!" said my father, turning away his troubled face from my gaze and the light, "I will not believe that this boy is my brother Brian's son." "But he says he is, papa," I answered, with eagerness; I did not believe in lying, and Edgar Southcote's pale face was beyond the possibility of untruth. "It is worth his while to say it," my father exclaimed hurriedly; then a strange spasm of agitation crossed his face--he turned to me again as if with an irrestrainable impulse to confide his trouble to me. "Hester! Brian was my _elder_ brother," he said in a low, quick whisper, and almost stealthily. I did not comprehend him. I was only a child--the real cause of his distress never occurred to me. "I know it would be very hard to take him home to Cottiswoode for a Southcote, and then to find out he was not uncle Brian's son," I said, looking up anxiously at my father, "and you know better than I, and remember my uncle; but papa--_I_ believe him--see! I knew it--he is like that picture there!" My father turned to the picture with a start of terror; it was an Edgar Southcote I was pointing to--a philosopher; one of the few of our house, who loved wisdom better than houses or lands, one who had died early after a sad short life. My father's face burned as he looked at the picture; the refined visionary head drooping over a book, and the large delicate eyelids with their long lashes were so like, so very like!--it struck him in a moment. "Papa, I believe him," I repeated very earnestly. My father started from me, and paced about the room in angry agitation. "I have trained you to be mistress of Cottiswoode, Hester," he said, when he returned to me. "I have taught you from your cradle to esteem above all things your name and your race--and now, and now, child, do you not understand me? if this boy is Brian's son, Cottiswoode is _his!_" It was like a flash of sudden lightning in the dark, revealing for an instant everything around, so terribly clear and visible--I could not speak at first. I felt as if the withering light had struck me, and I shivered and put forth all my strength to stand erect and still; then I felt my face burn as if my veins were bursting. "This was what he meant!" "What, who meant? Who?" cried my father. "You believe he is Edgar Southcote, papa?" said I, "you believe him as I do; I see it in your face--and the man sneers at you--_you_, father! because it is your interest to deny the boy. Let us go away, and leave him Cottiswoode if it is his; you would not do him wrong, you would not deny him his right--father, father, come away!"