"What a goose you are, my darling! Don't you know your mother from a
miscreant yet?"
But in truth her mother so rarely jested that there was some excuse for
her. Relieved from the passing pang of a sudden dread, Hester went
without more words and put on her bonnet to go with the cause of it. She
did not like the things at all, for no one could be certain what absurd
thing he might not do.
They set out together, but until they were some distance from the house
walked in absolute silence, which seemed to Hester to bode no good. But
how changed the poor man was, she thought. It would be pitiful to have
to make him still more miserable! Steadily the major marched along, his
stick under his arm like a sword, and his eyes looking straight before
him.
"Cousin Hester," he said at length, "I am about to talk to you very
strangely--to conduct myself indeed in a very peculiar manner. Can you
imagine a man rendering himself intensely, unpardonably disagreeable,
from the very best of motives?"
It was a speech very different from any to be expected of him. That he
should behave oddly seemed natural--not that he should knowingly intend
to do so!
"I think I could," answered Hester, wishing neither to lead him on nor
to deter him: whatever he had to say, the sooner it was said the better!
"Tell me," he said suddenly after a pause just beginning to be
awkward--then paused again.
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