He took our hands, Harry's and mine, and held them tightly within his own; then he said again, "Children, God bless you!" and sent us away. We went up to the drawing-room together; Harry had spent almost all of the day with us for at least a week past, and even now he did not seem disposed to go away. When I told him that I had something to do, he bade me bring it and work beside him--he would like to see me working, so I did what he said--and while I was busy with Alice's apron, he talked to me, for I did not speak a great deal myself. My mind was somewhat troubled by what my father had said. I had an uneasy sense of something doubtful and uncertain in our circumstances, of some event or mystery, though I could not tell what it was. I do not think I was pleased that Harry should be so willing to resign his name. It was one of those concessions that a woman does not like to have made to her. A true woman is far happier to receive rank than to confer it. When she is placed in these latter circumstances, she is thrown upon the false expedient of undervaluing herself, and what she has to bestow. I would much rather have felt that Harry was quite superior to me in the external matters--then we could have stood on our natural ground to each other, and I should have been proud of his name; but it was not a pleasant thought to me that he himself thought it unworthy, and that he was to adopt mine. "You are very grave, Hester; are you thinking of what your father said?" he asked me at last. "I do not quite know what I am thinking of," I said, with a faint sigh. "No, it is a summer cloud," said Harry, "something floating over this beautiful sky of our happiness; but it will not last, Hester. I know you may trust yourself; your sweet young life and all its hopes. I think you need not fear to trust them with me." "I have no fear--it is not that," said I; "do not heed me. I cannot tell what it is that troubles me." He bent down upon his knee to see my face, which was stooping over Alice's apron, and he put his hand upon mine, and arrested my fingers, which were playing nervously with the braid. "Do you remember the compact you made with me, Hester? 'Cannot tell' is for other people; but what troubles you should trouble me also." "Nay, I would not have that," said I, hurriedly, "that would be selfish, but indeed I don't know what it is--I rather feel as if there was something which I did not know--as if there was a secret somewhere which somebody ought to tell me; I cannot guess what or where it is, but I think there is surely something. Do you know of anything, Harry?" He continued to kneel at my knee, holding my hand, and looking up in my face, and I gazed at him wistfully, wondering to see the color rise to his very hair. He did not remove his eyes from me, but what could it be that brought that burning crimson to his face?