"It does sound disagreeable--vulgar, if you like, my child; but I cannot help being anxious about you. If he does not love you he has no right to court your company so much." "I encourage it, mamma. I like him." "That is what makes me afraid." "It will be time enough to think about it if he comes again now he has got the earldom." "Should you like to be a countess, Hester?" "I would rather not think about it, mother. It may never make any difference whether I should like it or not. "I can't help thinking it strange he should be so much with you and never say a word!" "Might you not just as well say it was strange of me to be so much with him, or of you, mother dear, to let him come so much to the house?" "It was neither your part nor mine to say anything. Your father even has always said he would scorn to ask a man his _intentions_: either he was fit to be in his daughter's company, or he was not. Either he must get rid of him, or leave his daughter to manage her own affairs. He is quite American in his way of looking at those matters." "Don't you think he is right, mother? If I let lord Gartley come, surely he is not to blame for coming! "Only if you should have got fond of him, and it were to come to nothing?" "It can't come to nothing, mother, and neither of us will be the worse for it, I trust. As to what I think about him, I don't feel as if I quite knew; and I don't think at present I need ask myself. I am afraid you think me very cool: and in truth I don't quite understand myself; but perhaps if one tries to do right as things come up, one may get on without understanding oneself. I don't think, so far as I can make out, St. Paul understood himself always. Miss Dasomma says a great part of music is the agony of the musician after the understanding of himself. I will try to do what is right--you may be sure of that, mother." "I am sure of that, my dear--quite sure; and I won't trouble you more about it. You may imagine I should not like to see my Hester a love-sick maiden, pining and wasting away!" "Depend upon It, mamma, if I found myself in that state no one else should discover it," said Hester, partly in play, but thoroughly in earnest. "That only reveals how little you know about such things, my love! You could no more hide it from the eyes of your mother than you could a husband." "Such things have been hid before now, mamma! And yet why should a woman ever hide anything? I must think about that! From one's own mother? No; when I am dying of love, you shall know, mamma. But it won't be to-morrow or the next day." CHAPTER XXXI. THE MAJOR AND COUSIN HELEN'S BOYS.