A merry, friendly smile lighted up eyes and face
as he spoke. Hester could not help liking him at first sight--yet felt a
little shy of him. She thought she had heard her mother speak of a
cousin somewhere abroad: this must be he--if indeed she did remember any
such!
"You don't remember me," he said, "seeing you were not in this world,
wherever else you may have been, for a year or two after I left the
country: and, to tell the truth, had I been asked, I should have
objected to your appearance on any terms."
As this speech did not seem to carry much enlightenment with it, he went
on to explain. "The fact is, my dear young lady, that I left the country
because your mother and I were too much of one mind."
"Of one mind?" said Hester, bewildered.
"Ah, you don't understand!" said the major, who was all the time
standing before her with the most polite though confident bearing. The
thing you see, was this: I liked your mother better than myself, and so
did she; and without any jealousy of one another, it was not an
arrangement for my happiness. I had the choice between two things,
stopping at home and breaking my heart by seeing her the wife of another
man, and going away and getting over it the best way I could.
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