'
'My dear,' said Dick, desperately, 'you do not understand;
you do not know what it is to be treated with daily want of
comprehension and daily small injustices, through childhood
and boyhood and manhood, until you despair of a hearing,
until the thing rides you like a nightmare, until you almost
hate the sight of the man you love, and who's your father
after all. In short, Esther, you don't know what it is to
have a father, and that's what blinds you.'
'I see,' she said musingly, 'you mean that I am fortunate in
my father. But I am not so fortunate after all; you forget,
I do not know him; it is you who know him; he is already more
your father than mine.' And here she took his hand. Dick's
heart had grown as cold as ice. 'But I am sorry for you,
too,' she continued, 'it must be very sad and lonely.'
'You misunderstand me,' said Dick, chokingly. 'My father is
the best man I know in all this world; he is worth a hundred
of me, only he doesn't understand me, and he can't be made
to.'
There was a silence for a while. 'Dick,' she began again, 'I
am going to ask a favour, it's the first since you said you
loved me. May I see your father - see him pass, I mean,
where he will not observe me?'
'Why?' asked Dick.
'It is a fancy; you forget, I am romantic about fathers.'
The hint was enough for Dick; he consented with haste, and
full of hang-dog penitence and disgust, took her down by a
backway and planted her in the shrubbery, whence she might
see the Squire ride by to dinner.
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