might watch Uncle Lingon's water-spaniel run for the hurled stick and bring it in his mouth. Nimrod kept close to his old master's legs, glancing with much indifference at this youthful ardour about sticks, he had "gone through all that;" and Dominic walked by, looking on blandly, and taking care both of young and old. Mrs. Transome was not there. Looking back and seeing that they were a good deal in advance of the rest, Esther and Harold paused. What do you think about thinning the trees over there?" said Harold, pointing with his stick. "I have a bit of a notion that if they were divided into clumps so as to show the oaks beyond, it would be a great improvement. It would give an idea of extent that is lost now. And there might be some very pretty clumps got out of those mixed trees. What do you think?" "I should think it would be an improvement. One likes a 'beyond' everywhere. But I never heard you express yourself so dubiously," said Esther, looking at him rather archly; "you generally see things so clearly, and are so convinced, that I shall begin to feel quite tottering if I find you in uncertainty. Pray don't begin to be doubtful; it is so infectious." "You think me a great deal too sure, - too confident?" said Harold. " Not at all. It is an immense advantage to know your own will, when you always mean to have it." "But suppose I could n't get it in spite of meaning?" said Harold, with a beaming inquiry in his eyes. "Oh, then," said Esther, turning her head aside, carelessly, as if she were considering the distant birch-stems, "you would bear it quite easily, as you did your not getting into Parliament. You would know you could get it another time, or get something else as good." "The fact is," said Harold, moving on a little, as if he did not want to be quite overtaken by the others, "you consider me a fat, fatuous, self-satisfied fellow." "Oh, there are degrees," said Esther, with a silvery laugh; "you have just as much of those qualities as is becoming. There are different styles. You are perfect in your own." "But you prefer another style, I suspect. A more submissive, tearful, devout worshipper, who would offer his incense with more trembling." "You are quite mistaken," said Esther, still lightly. "I find I am very wayward. When anything is offered to me, it seems that I prize it less, and don't want to have it." Here was a very balking answer; but in spite of it Harold could not help believing that Esther was very far from objecting to the sort of incense he had been offering just then. "I have often read that that is in human nature," she went on," yet it takes me by surprise in myself. I suppose," she added, smiling, "I did n't think of myself as human nature." "I don't confess to the same waywardness," said Harold. "I am very fond of things that I can get; and I never longed much for anything out of my reach. Whatever I feel sure of getting I like all the better. I think half those priggish maxims about human nature in the lump are no more to be |