»I have so held it,« said Mr Lyon, solemnly; »in all my meditations I have
so held it. For you have to consider, my dear, that you have been led by a
peculiar path, and into experience which is not ordinarily the lot of those who
are seated in high places; and what I have hinted to you already in my letters
on this head, I shall wish on a future opportunity to enter into more at large.«
    Esther was uneasily silent. On this great question of her lot she saw doubts
and difficulties, in which it seemed as if her father could not help her. There
was no illumination for her in this theory of providential arrangement. She said
suddenly (what she had not thought of at all suddenly) -
    »Have you been again to see Felix Holt, father? You have not mentioned him
in your letters.«
    »I have been since I last wrote, my dear, and I took his mother with me,
who, I fear, made the time heavy to him with her plaints. But afterwards I
carried her away to the house of a brother minister of Loamford, and returned to
Felix, and then we had much discourse.«
    »Did you tell him of everything that has happened - I mean about me - about
the Transomes?«
    »Assuredly I told him, and he listened as one astonished. For he had much to
hear, knowing nought of your birth, and that you had any other father than Rufus
Lyon. 'Tis a narrative I trust I shall not be called on to give to others; but I
was not without satisfaction in unfolding the truth to this young man, who hath
wrought himself into my affection strangely - I would fain hope for ends that
will be a visible good in his less way-worn life, when mine shall be no longer.«
    »And you told him how the Transomes had come, and that I was staying at
Transome Court?«
    »Yes, I told these things with some particularity, as is my wont concerning
what hath imprinted itself on my mind.«
    »What did Felix say?«
    »Truly, my dear, nothing desirable to recite,« said Mr Lyon, rubbing his
hand over his brow.
    »Dear father, he did say something, and you always remember what people say.
Pray tell me; I want to know.«
    »It was a hasty remark, and rather escaped him than was consciously framed.
He said, Then she will marry Transome; that is what Transome means.«
    »