"It was superhumanly good, Esther. But I am glad you were so good. However, you talked last night?" "He said a great many things which I had always known," she said, her cheeks all one soft fire. "Well, Essie dear," I said consolingly,--during her recital the tears had dried themselves away on her hot cheeks,--"we must only hope for the best. Of course it's a pity you should have selected the grandson of the hereditary enemy to fall in love with, but, as a matter of Christianity, there's no reason why the feud shouldn't lie with Sir Rupert in his grave. He made it, and I don't see why it shouldn't end with him. And then it would be a pretty bit of poetical justice if his heir should marry one of the family he has impoverished." "Marry!" cried Esther; "I had not thought about marrying!" "I don't suppose you had," said I, "but those things generally end that way. All the same, I daresay it's as well you shouldn't think about it just yet, for I've no doubt that the fact that Sir Rupert is still alive will indefinitely postpone it." "I should be satisfied," said Esther, with one of her enraptured looks, "just to know that he loved me, and that things were well with him. I think I should be happy so, if I were never to see him." I kissed her for answer. Dear Esther, she was always one to give up all and never count the cost. "Now, bathe your face and come down," I said, after a few minutes, "or Lady O'Brien will think I have kidnapped you. By the way, you will tell Aline that you met young De Lacy at the ball?" "I suppose so," said Esther; "or will you, Hilda? I should be afraid of betraying myself." "I daresay your godmother will save us the trouble," I suggested. And, sure enough, when we went downstairs the first name we heard from Lady O'Brien's lips was De Lacy. Fortunately the room was full of dusk and firelight by this time, so that the mantling colour which I felt sure Esther wore was invisible. "I'm inclined to agree with you," Pierce was saying as we went in. "If I'd been here I should hardly have backed up Aline in shutting the door against the lad. He had right on his side when he refused to be made an enemy on his grandfather's account." "He's a throw-back, as his father was before him," said Lady O'Brien, "or how does a De Lacy come by those gentle eyes and delicate ways? It makes him less of a match for old Rupert." "Still, he has plenty of courage," said Aline, "or he wouldn't be shut up in Angry with those two wicked old men." "Indeed, then, 'tis no place for him," asserted Lady O'Brien. "And more betoken, he is going to have the run of my drawing-room, I can tell you."