He did not know, even then, what a large fortune she had. That the major rejoiced over what he found when he came to inquire into things, I do not doubt. But I am entirely sure he would have been an honourable husband had he found she had nothing. When she left him the widowed father of a little girl, he mourned sincerely for her. When the child followed her mother, he was for some time a sad man indeed. He had now returned to his country to find almost every one of his old friends dead, or so changed as to make them all but dead to him.

Little as anyone would have imagined it from his conversation or manner, it was with a kind of heart-despair that he sought the cousin he had loved. And scarcely had he seen the daughter of his old love than he was immediately taken with her. He saw at once that she was a grand sort of person and gracious—different from anyone he had ever seen before. At the same time he unconsciously began to feel a claim toward her—to have loved the mother seemed to give him a right in the daughter. But all this was as yet only in the region of the feelings, not at all in that of the thinking.

“Well,” said Hester, “I shall go back to him, mama, and tell him you are coming as soon as you have got your wig and your newest lace-cap on, and your cheeks rouged and pearl-powdered, to look as much like the young lady he left as you can.”

Her mother laughed merrily and pretended to give her daughter a box on the ears. It was not often any mood like this rose between them, for not only were they serious in heart, but from temperament and history and modes and directions of thought, their ways were serious as well.

“Look what I have brought you, cousin,” said major Marvel the moment Hester reentered the room, holding out to her a small necklace. “You don’t mind such a gift from an old fellow like me. Of course I don’t mean that I want to marry you straightaway before I know what sort of temper you’ve got. Here, take them.”

Hester drew near and looked at the necklace.

“Take it,” said the major again.

“How strangely beautiful it is!—all red, pear-shaped, dull, scratched stones, hanging from a savage-looking gold chain. What are they, Mr. Marvel?”

“You have described it like a book!” he said. “It is a barbarous native necklace, but they are fine rubies—only rough, neither cut nor polished.”

“It is beautiful,” repeated Hester. “Did you really mean it for me?”

“Of course I did!”

“I will ask mama if I can keep it.”

“Why do that? I hope you don’t think I stole it?—But here comes your mother!—Helen, I’m so glad to see you again!”