He had seen nothing, but had only been guided by the sound of voices to the top of the sloping wooded bank, where, under the shade of the oak-trees, looking over the tall spreading brackens, he beheld Essie in her pretty gipsy hat and holland dress, with all her bird-like daintiness, kneeling on the moss far below him, threading the scarlet beads on bents of grass, with the little ones round her.

“I heard a chattering,” he said, as, descending through the fern, he met her dark eyes looking up like those of a startled fawn; “so I came to see whether the rabbits had found tongues.  How many more are there?  No, thank you,” as Edmund and Lina answered his greeting with an offer of very moist-looking fruit, and an ungrammatical “Only us.”

“Then us run away.  They grow thick up that bank, and I’ve got a prize here for whoever keeps away longest.  No, you shan’t see what it is.  Any one who comes asking questions will lose it.  Run away, Lina, you’ll miss your chance.  No, no, Essie, you are not a competitor.”

“I must, Robert; indeed I must.”

“Can’t you spare me a moment when I am come down for my last farewell visit?”

“But you are not going for a good while yet.”

“So you call it, but it will seem short enough.  Did you ever hear of minutes seeming like diamond drops meted out, Essie?”

“But, you know, it is your own doing,” said Essie.

“Yes, and why, Essie?  Because misfortune has made such an exile as this the readiest mode of ceasing to be a burden to my mother.”

“Papa said he was glad of it,” said Esther, “and that you were quite right.  But it is a terrible way off!”

“True! but there is one consideration that will make up to me for everything.”

“That it is for Aunt Caroline!”

“Partly, but do you not know the hope which makes all work sweet to me?” And the look of his eyes, and his hand seeking hers, made her say,

“Oh don’t, Robert, I mustn’t.”

“Nay, my queen, you were too duteous to hearken to me when I was rich and prosperous.  I would not torment you then, I meant to be patient; but now I am poor and going into banishment, you will be generous and compassionate, and let me hear the one word that will make my exile sweet.”

“I don’t think I ought,” said the poor child under her breath. “0, Robert, don’t you know I ought not.”

“Would you if that ugly cypher of an ought did not stand in the way?”

“Oh don’t ask me, Robert; I don’t know.”

“But I do know, my queen,” said he.  “I know my little Essie better than she knows herself.  I know her true heart is mine, only she dares not avow it to herself; and when hearts have so met, Esther, they owe one another a higher duty than the filial tie can impose.”

“I never heard that before,” she said, puzzled, but not angered.

“No, it is not a doctrine taught in schoolrooms, but it is true and universal for all that, and our fathers and mothers acted on it in their day, and will give way to it now.”