He returned, and seated himself, with a deep sigh. His lips moved as if he were speaking, though no sound escaped them; but after a moment he said: 'It's all that I can do for one who's dead.' 'I _do_ believe that your child is dear to you, Jacob; I never doubted it,' said Harson; but there is another question which I must ask. 'Have you observed her of late? Have you noticed her drooping eye, her want of spirits, and failing strength?' Rhoneland moved restlessly in his chair, and then answered: 'No, no, Harry, you're jesting. Kate's eye is bright, and her cheek full and round; her step elastic and firm. I watch _that_, Harson. Oh! Harry, you don't dream how anxiously I watch her. Her life is mine; her heart's blood is _my_ heart's blood. She's in no danger, no danger, Harry,' said he, taking Harson's hand between his, and looking appealingly in his face. 'Is she in any danger? Don't deceive me. Is any thing the matter with her?' 'No, not just now,' replied Harson. 'But suppose you should see her becoming thin, and her looks and health failing; and even though she should not die, suppose her young heart was heavy, and her happiness destroyed--and by you?' The old man looked at Harson with a troubled, wistful eye, as he said: 'Well, Harry, well; I 'm old--very old; don't trifle with me, I can't bear it. What do you mean? Is Kate ill?' 'No, not exactly _ill_,' replied Harson, much at a loss how to introduce his subject. 'Suppose, in short, that she should fall in love, some day--for young girls _will_ do these things--and suppose that the young fellow was a noble, frank-hearted boy, like--like Ned Somers, for instance--would you thwart her? I only say _suppose_ it to be Somers.' 'Kate doesn't think of these things,' said the old man, in a querulous tone. 'She's a child; a mere child. It will be time enough to talk of them years hence. God help me!' muttered he, pressing his hands together, 'Can it be that _she_, my own little Kate, will desert me? I'll not believe it! She's but a child, Harry; _only_ a child.' 'Kate is nearly eighteen, Jacob,' replied Harson, 'and quite a woman for her years. She's beautiful, too. I pretend to no knowledge of women's hearts, nor of the precise age at which they think of other things than their dolls; but were I a young fellow, and were such a girl as Kate Rhoneland in my neighborhood, I should have been over head and ears in love, months ago.' Jacob Rhoneland folded his hands on the table, and leaned his head upon them, without speaking, until Harson said, after the lapse of some minutes, 'Come, Jacob, what ails you?' Without making any reply to this question, Rhoneland sat up, and looking him full in the face, asked, in a sad tone: 'Do you think, Harry, that Kate, my own child, has turned her back upon me, and given her heart to a stranger? And do you think that she will desert her father in his old age, and leave him to die alone?'