he more than seen the daughter of his old love than, in the absence of almost all other personal interest, he was immediately taken possession of by her--saw at once that she was a grand sort of creature, gracious as grand, and different from anything he had even seen before. At the same time he unconsciously began to claim a property in her; to have loved the mother seemed to give him a right in the daughter, and that right there might be a way of making good. But all this was as yet only in the region of the feeling, not at all in that of the thinking. In proportion as he was taken with the daughter of the house, he disliked the look of the fine gentleman visitor that seemed to be dangling after her. Who he was, or in what capacity there, he did not know, but almost from the first sight profoundly disliked him, and the more as he saw more sign of his admiration of Hester. He might be a woman-eater, and after her money--if she had any: such suspects must be watched and followed, and their haunts marked. "But," said Hester, fearing the conversation might here take a dangerous turn, "I should like to understand the thing a little better. I am not willing to set myself down as a coward; I do not see that a woman has any right to be a coward any more than a man. Tell me, major Marvel--when you know that a beast may have you down, and begin eating you any moment, what is it that keeps you up? What have you to fall back upon? Is it principle, or faith, or what is it?" "Ho, ho!" said the Major, laughing, "a meta-physician in the very bosom of my family!--I had not reckoned upon that!--Well, no, my dear, I cannot exactly say that it is principle, and I am sure it is not faith. You don't think about it at all. It's partly your elephant, and partly your rifle--and partly perhaps--well, there I daresay comes in something of principle!--that as an Englishman you are sent to that benighted quarter of the world to kill their big vermin for them, poor things! But no, you don't think of that at the time. You've got to kill him--that's it. And then when he comes roaring on, your rifle jumps to your shoulder of itself." "Do you make up your mind beforehand that if the animal should kill you, it is all right?" asked Hester. "By no means, I give you my word of honor," answered the major, laughing. "Well now," answered Hester, "except I had made up my mind that if I was killed it was all right, I couldn't meet the tiger." "But you see, my dear," said the major, "you do not know what it is to have confidence in your eye and your rifle. It is a form of power that you soon come to feel as resting in yourself--a power to destroy the thing that opposes you!" Hester fell a-thinking, and the talk went on without her. She never heard the end of the story, but was roused by the laughter that followed it.