It came to the last evening, and he was sitting with her on the verandah. It was rather cool there now; the roses and honeysuckles and the summer moonshine were gone; the two friends chose to stay there because they could be alone, and nobody overhear their words. Words for a little while had ceased to flow. Esther was sitting very still, and Pitt knew how she was looking; something of the dry despair had come back to her face which had been in it when he was first moved to busy himself about her.

'Esther, I shall come back,' he said suddenly, bending down to look in her face.

'When?' she said, half under her breath. It was not a question; it was an answer.

'Well, not immediately; but the years pass away fast, don't you know that?'

'Are you sure you will come back?'

'Why, certainly! if I am alive I will. Why, if I came for nothing else, I would come to see after you, Queen Esther.'

Esther was silent. Talking was not easy.

'And meanwhile, I shall be busy, and you will be busy. We have both a great deal to do.'

'You have.'

'And I am sure you have. Now let us consult. What have you got to do, before we see one an other again?'

'I suppose,' said Esther, 'take care of papa.'

She said it in a quiet, matter-of-course tone, and Pitt started a little. It was very likely; but it had not just occurred to him before, how large a part that care might play in the girl's life for some time to come.

'Does he need so much care?' he asked.

'It isn't real care,' said Esther, in the same tone; 'but he likes to have me about, to do things for him.'

'Queen Esther, aren't you going to carry on your studies for me, all the same?'

'For you!' said she, lifting her heavy eyes to him. It hurt him to see how heavy they were; weighted with a great load of sorrow, too mighty for tears.

'For me, certainly. I expect everything to go on just as if I were here to look after it. I expect everything to go on so, that when I come again I may find just what I want to find. You must not disappoint me.'

Esther did not say. She made no answer at all, and after a minute put a question which was a diversion.

'Where are you going first, Pitt?'

'To Lisbon.'

'Yes, I know that; but when you get to England?'

'London first. You know that is the great English centre?'

'Do you know any people there?'

'Not I. But I have a great-uncle there, living at Kensington. I believe that is part of London, though really I don't know much about it. I shall go to see him, of course.'

'Your great-uncle! That is, Mr. Dallas's own uncle?'

'No, my mother's. His name is Strahan.'

'And then you are going to Oxford? Why do you go there? Are not the colleges in America just as good?'

'I can tell better after I've seen Oxford. But no, Queen Esther; that is larger and older and richer than any college in America can be; indeed it is a cluster of colleges—it is a University.'

'Will you study in them all?'

'No,' said Pitt, laughing, 'not exactly! But it is a fine place, by all accounts—a noble place. And then, you know, we are English, and my father and mother wish me to be as English as possible. That is natural.'

'We are English too,' said Esther, sighing.

'Therefore you ought to be glad I am going.'

But Esther's cheek only grew a shade paler.

'Will you keep up your studies, like a good girl?'

'I will try.'

'And send me a drawing now and then, to let me see how you are getting on?'

She lifted her eyes to him again, for one of those grave, appealing looks. 'How could I get it to you?'

'Your father will have my address. I shall write to him, and I shall write to you.'

She made no answer. The things filling her heart were too many for it, and too strong; there came no tears, but her breathing was laboured; and her brow was dark with what seemed a mountain of oppression. Pitt was half-glad that just now there came a call for Esther from the room behind them. Both went in. The colonel wanted Esther to search in a repository of papers for a certain English print of some months back.

'Well, my boy,' said he, 'are you off?'

'Just off, sir,' said Pitt, eyeing the little figure that was busy in the corner among the papers. It gave him more pain than he had thought to leave it. 'I wish you would come over, colonel. Why shouldn't you? It would do you good. I mean, when there is peace again upon the high seas.'

'I shall never leave this place again till I leave all that is earthly,' Colonel Gainsborough answered.

'May I take the liberty sometimes of writing to you, sir?'

'I should like it very much, William.'

'And if I find anything that would amuse Esther, sir, may I tell her about it?'

'I have no objection. She will be very much obliged to you. So you are going? Heaven be with you, my boy. You have lightened many an hour for me.'

He rose up and shook Pitt's hand, with a warm grasp and a dignified manner of leave-taking. But when Pitt would have taken Esther's hand, she brushed past him and went out into the hall. Pitt followed, with another bow to the colonel, and courteously shutting the door behind him, wishing the work well over. Esther, however, made no fuss, hardly any demonstration. She stood there in the hall and gave him her hand silently, I might say coldly, for the hand was very cold, and her face was white with suppressed feeling. Pitt grasped the hand and looked at the face; hesitated; then opened his arms and took her into them and kissed her. Was she not like a little sister? and was it possible to let this heartache go without alleviation? No doubt if the colonel had been present he would not have ventured such a breach of forms; but as it was Pitt defied forms. He clasped the sorrowing little girl in his arms and kissed her brow and her cheek and her lips.

'I'm coming back again,' said he. 'See that you have everything all right for me when I come.'

Then he let her out of his arms and went off without another word. As he went home, he was ready to smile and shake himself at the warmth of demonstration into which he had been betrayed. He was not Esther's brother, and had no particular right to show himself so affectionate. The colonel would have been, he doubted, less than pleased, and it would not have happened in his dignified presence. But Esther was a child, Pitt said to himself, and a very tender child; and he could not be sorry that he had shown her the feeling was not all on her side. Perhaps it might comfort the child. It never occurred to him to reproach himself with showing more than he felt, for he had no occasion. The feeling he had given expression to was entirely genuine, and possibly deeper than he knew, although he shook his head, figuratively, at himself as he went home.

Esther, when the door closed upon Pitt, stood still for some minutes, in the realization that now it was all over and he was gone. The hall door was like a grim kind of barrier, behind which the light of her life had disappeared. It remained so stolidly closed! Pitt's hand did not open it again; the hand was already at a distance, and would maybe never push that door open any more. He was gone, and the last day of that summer vacation was over. The feeling absorbed Esther for a few minutes and made her as still as a stone. It did comfort her that he had taken such a kindly leave of her, and at the same time it sealed the sense of her loss. For he was the only one in the world in whose heart it was to give her good earnest kisses like that; and he was away, away! Her father's affection for her was undoubted, nevertheless it was not his wont to give it that sort of expression. Esther was not comparing, however, nor reflecting; only filled with the sense of her loss, which for the moment chilled and stiffened her. She heard her father's voice calling her, and she went in.

'My dear, you stay too long in the cold. Is William gone?'

'Oh yes, papa.'

'This is not the right paper I want; this is an August paper. I want the one for the last week in July.'

Esther went and rummaged again among the pile of newspapers, mechanically, finding it hard to command her attention to such an indifferent business. She brought the July paper at last.

'Papa, do you think he will ever come back?' she asked, trembling with pain and the effort not to show it.

'Come back? Who? William Dallas? Why shouldn't he come back? His parents are here; if he lives, he will return to them, no doubt.'

Esther sat down and said no more. The earth seemed to her dreadfully empty.



CHAPTER XIII.

LETTERS.

And so life seemed for many days to the child. She could not shake off the feeling, nor regain any brightness of spirit. Dull, dull, everything in earth and heaven seemed to be. The taste and savour had gone out of all her pleasures and occupations. She could not read, without the image of Pitt coming between her and the page; she could not study, without an unendurable sense that he was no longer there nor going to be there to hear her lessons. She had no heart for walks, where every place recalled some memory of Pitt, and what they had done or said there together; she shunned the box of coins, and hardly cared to gather one of the few lingering fall flowers. And the last of them were soon gone, for the pleasant season was ended. Then came rains and clouds and winds, and Esther was shut up to the house.

I can never tell how desolate she was. Truly she was only a girl of thirteen; she ought not to have been desolate, perhaps, for any no greater matter. She had her father, and her books, and her youth. Bat Esther had also a nature delicate and deep far beyond what is common; and then she was unduly matured by her peculiar life. Intercourse with light-hearted children like herself had not kept her thoughtless and careless. At thirteen Esther was looking into life, and finding it already confused and dark. At thirteen also she was learning and practising self-command. Her father, not much of an observer unless in the field of military operations, had no perception that she was suffering; it never occurred to him that she might be solitary; he never knew that she needed his tenderest care and society and guidance. He might have replaced everything to Esther, so that she would have found no want at all. He did nothing of the kind. He was a good man; just and upright and highly honourable; but he was selfish, like most men. He lived to himself in his own deprivation and sorrow, and never thought but that Esther would in a few days get over the loss of her young teacher and companion. He hardly thought about it at all. The idea of filling Pitt's place, of giving her in his own person what left her when Pitt went away, did not enter his head. Indeed, he had no knowledge of what Pitt had done for her. If he had known it, there is little doubt it would have excited his jealousy. For it is quite in some people's nature to be jealous of another's having what they do not want themselves.

And so Esther suffered in a way and to a degree that was not good for her. Her old dull spiritless condition was creeping upon her again. She realized, more than it is the way of thirteen years old to realize, that something more than an ocean of waters—an ocean of circumstances—had rolled itself between her and the one friend and companion she had ever had. Pitt said he would return; but four or five years, for all present purposes, is a sort of eternity at her age; hope could not leap over it, and expectation died at the brink. Her want of comfort came back in full force; but where was the girl to get it?

The sight of Mr. and Mrs. Dallas used to put her in a fever. Once in a while the two would come to make an evening call upon her father; and then Esther used to withdraw as far as possible into a corner of the room and watch and listen; watch the looks of the pair with a kind of irritated fascination, and listen to their talk with her heart jumping and throbbing in pain and anxiety and passionate longing. For they were Pitt's father and mother, and only the ocean of waters lay between him and them, which they could cross at any time; he belonged to them, and could not be separated from them. All which would have drawn Esther very near to them and made them delightful to her, but that she knew very well they desired no such approach. Whether it were simply because she and her father were 'dissenters' Esther could not tell; whatever the reason, her sensitive nature and discerning vision saw the fact. They made visits of neighbourly politeness to the one English family that was within reach; but more than politeness they desired neither to give nor receive. I suppose it was this perception which made the sight of the pair so irritating to Esther. They were near Pitt, but they did not wish that she should be. Esther kept well at a distance. But with all this they talked of their son perpetually: of his voyage, of his prospects, of his grand-uncle at Kensington, of his career in college, or at the University rather, and of his possible permanent remaining in the old country; at any rate, of his studying there for a profession. The colonel was only faintly interested, and would take up his book with a sigh of relief when they were gone; but Esther would sit in passionate misery, not shedding any tears; only staring with her big eyes at the lire in a sort of fixed gravity most unfit for her years.

The months went heavily. Winters were rather severe and very long at Seaforth; Esther was much shut up to the house. It made things all the harder for her. To the colonel it made no difference. He lay upon his couch, summer or winter, and went on with his half-hearted reading,—half a heart was all he brought to it; while Esther would stand at the window, watching the snow drive past, or the beating down of the rain, or the glitter of the sunbeams upon a wide white world, and almost wonder at the thought that warm lights and soft airs and flowers and walks and botanizing had ever been out there, where now the glint of the sunbeams on the snow-crystals was as sharp as diamonds, and all vegetable life seemed to be gone for ever.

Pitt had sailed in November, various difficulties having delayed his departure to a month later than the time intended for it. Therefore news from him could not be looked for until the new year was on its way. Towards the end of January, however, as early as could possibly be hoped, a letter came to Colonel Gainsborough, which he immediately knew to be in Pitt's hand.

'No postmark,' he said, surveying it. 'I suppose it came by private opportunity.'

'Papa, you look a long while at the outside!' said Esther, who stood by full of excited impatience which she knew better than to show.

'The outside has its interest too, my dear,' said her father. 'I was looking for the Lisbon postmark, but there is none whatever. It must have come by private hand.'

He broke the seal, and found within an enclosure directed to Esther, which he gave her. And Esther presently left the room. Her father, she saw, was deep in the contents of his letter, and would not notice her going, while if she stayed in the room she knew she would be called upon to read her own letter or to show it before she was ready. She wanted to enjoy the full first taste of it, slowly and thoroughly. Meanwhile, the colonel never noticed her going. Pitt's letter was dated 'Lisbon, Christmas Day, 1813,' and ran as follows:—

'MY DEAR COLONEL,—I have landed at last, as you see, in this dirtiest of all places I ever was in. I realize now why America is called the New world; for everything here drives the consciousness upon me that the world on this side is very old—so old, I should say, that it is past cleansing. I do suppose it is not fair to compare it with Seaforth, which is as bright in comparison as if it were an ocean shell shining with pure lights; but I certainly hope things will mend when I get to London.

'But I did not mean to talk to you about Lisbon, which I suppose you know better than I do. My hope is to give you the pleasure of an early piece of news. Probably the papers will already have given it to you, but it is just possible that the chances of weather and ships may let my letter get to you first, and in that case my pleasure will be gained.

'There is great news. Napoleon has been beaten, beaten! isn't that great? He has lost a hundred thousand men, and is driven back over the Rhine. Holland has joined the Allies, and the Prince of Orange; and Lord Wellington has fought such a battle as history hardly tells of; seven days' fighting; and the victory ranks with the greatest that ever were gained.

'That is all I can tell you now, but it is so good you can afford to wait for further details. It is now more difficult than ever to get into France, and I don't know yet how I am going to make my way to England; it is specially hard for Americans, and I must be reckoned an American, you know. However, money will overcome all difficulties; money and persistence. I have written to Esther something about my voyage, which will, I hope, interest her. I will do myself the pleasure of writing again when I get to London. Meanwhile, dear sir, I remain

'Ever your grateful and most obedient,

'WILM. PITT DALLAS.'

Esther, while her father was revelling in this letter, was taking a very different sort of pleasure in hers. There was a fire up-stairs in her room; she lit a candle, and, in the exquisite sense of having her enjoyment all to herself, went slowly over the lines; as slowly as she could.

'Lisbon, Christmas Day, 1813. 'MY DEAR LITTLE ESTHER,—If you think a voyage over the sea is in anything like a journey by land, you are mistaken. The only one thing in which they are alike, is that in both ways you get on. But wheels go smoothly, even over a jolty road; and waves do nothing but toss you. It was just one succession of rollings and pitchings from the time we left New Bedford till we got sight of the coast of Portugal. The wind blew all the time almost a gale, rising at different points of our passage to the full desert of the name. One violent storm we had; and all the rest of the voyage we were pitching about at such a rate that we had to fight for our meals; tables were broken, and coffee and chocolate poured about with a reckless disregard of economy. For about halt the way it rained persistently; so altogether you may suppose, Queen Esther, that my first experience has not made me in love with the sea. But it wasn't bad, after all. The wind drove us along, that was one comfort; and it would have driven us along much faster, if our sails had been good for anything; but they were a rotten set, a match for the crew, who were a rascally band of Portuguese. However, we drove along, as I said, seeing nobody to speak to all the way except ourselves; not a sail in sight nearer than eight or ten miles off.

'Well, the 23rd we sighted land, to everybody's great joy, you may suppose. The wind fell, and that night was one of the most beautiful and delicious you can imagine. A smooth sea without a ripple, a clear sky without a cloud, stars shining down quietly, and air as soft as May at Seaforth. I stood on deck half the night, enjoying, and thinking of five hundred thousand things one after another. Now that I was almost setting my foot on a new world, my life, past and future, seemed to rise up and confront me; and I looked at it and took counsel with it, as it were. Seaforth on one side, and Oxford on the other; the question was, what should William Pitt be between them? The question never looked so big to me before. Somehow, I believe, the utter perfection of the night suggested to me the idea of perfection generally; what a mortal may come to when at his best. Such a view of nature as I was having puts one out of conceit, I believe, with whatever is out of order, unseemly, or untrue, or what for any reason misses the end of its existence. Then rose the question, what is the end of existence?—but I did not mean to give you my moralizings, Queen Esther; I have drifted into it. I can tell you, though, that my moralizing got a sharp emphasis the next day.

'I turned in at last, leaving the world of air and water a very image of peace. I slept rather late, I suppose; was awakened by the hoarse voice of the captain calling all hands on deck, in a manner that showed me there must be urgent cause. I tumbled up as soon as possible. What do you think I saw?

'The morning was as fair as the night had been. The sea was smooth, the sun shining brilliantly. I suppose the colonel would tell you, that seas may be too smooth; anyhow I saw the fact now. There had been not wind enough during the night to make our sails of any use; a current had caught us, and we had been drifting, drifting, till now it appeared we were drifting straight on to a line of rocks which we could see at a little distance; made known both to eye and ear: to the former by a line of white where the waves broke upon the rocks, and to the latter by the thundering noise the breakers made. Now you know, where waves break, a ship would stand very little chance of holding together; but what were we to do? The only thing possible we did,—let out our anchors; but the question was, would they hold? They did hold, but none too soon; for we were left riding only about three times our ship's length from the threatening danger. You see, we had a drunken crew; no proper watch was kept; the captain was first roused by the thunder of the waves dashing upon the rocks; and then nothing was ready or in order, and before the anchors could be got out we were where I tell you. The anchors held, but we could not tell how long they would hold, nor how soon the force of the waves would drag us, cables and all, to the rocks. There we sat and looked at the view and situation. We hoisted a signal and fired guns of distress; but we were in front of a rocky shore that gave us little hope of either being of avail. At last, after three hours of this, the captain and some of the passengers got into the yawl and went off to find help. We, left behind, stared at the breakers. After three more hours had gone, I saw the yawl coming back, followed by another small boat, and further off by four royal pilot boats with sails. I saw them with the glass, that is, from my station in the rigging. When they came up, all the passengers except half a dozen, of whom I was one, were transferred to the pilot boats. You should have heard the jabber of the Portuguese when they came on board! But the captain had determined to try to save his brig, as by this time a slight breeze had sprung up, and I stayed with some of the others to help in the endeavour. When the rest of the passengers were safe on board the pilot boats, we set about our critical undertaking. Sails were spread, one anchor hoisted, the cable of the other cut, and we stood holding our breath, to see whether wind or water would prove strongest. But the sails drew; the brig slowly fell off before the wind, and we edged away from our perilous position. Then, when we were fairly off, there rose a roar of shouts that rent the air; for the boats had all waited, lying a few rods off, to see what would become of us. Queen Esther, I can tell you, if I had been a woman, I should have sat down and cried; what I did I won't say. As I looked back to the scene of our danger, there was a most lovely rainbow spanning it, showing in the cloud of spray that rose above the breakers.

'At six o'clock on Christmas eve I landed at Lisbon, where I got comfortable quarters in an English boarding-house. When I can get to London, I do not yet know. I am here at a great time, to see history as it is taking shape in human life and experience; something different from looking at it as cast into bronze or silver in former ages and packed up in a box of coins; hey, Queen Esther? But that's good too in its way. Your father will tell you the news.

'Your devoted subject,

'WILM. PITT DALLAS.'



CHAPTER XIV.

STRUGGLES.

Esther sat, swallowed up of excitement, poring over this letter, longer than she knew; whether it gave her most pain or pleasure she could not have told. Pleasure came in a great wave at first; and then pricks of pain began to make themselves felt, as if the pleasure wave had been full of sharp points. Her cheeks glowed, her eyes sent looks, or rather one steady look, at the paper, which would certainly have bored it through or set it on fire if moral qualities had taken to themselves material power. At last, remembering that she must not stay too long, she folded the letter up and returned to her father. He had taken his letter coolly, she saw, and gone back to his book. How far his world was from hers! Absolutely, Pitt's letter was nothing to him.

'Well, my dear,' said he, after a while observing her, 'what does he say?'

'I suppose he told you, papa, what happened to him?'

'No, he did not; he only told me what is happening to the world. He has gone to Europe at a grand time!'

'What is happening to the world, papa?'

'My dear, that arch-usurper and mischief-maker, Napoleon Buonaparte, has been beaten by the allied armies at Leipzig—driven back over the Rhine. It's glorious news! I wish I was with Lord Wellington.'

'To fight, papa?'

'Certainly. I would like to have a hand in what is going on. If I could,' he added with a sigh.

'But papa, I should think fighting was not pleasant work?'

'Women's fighting is not.'

'Is men's fighting, papa? Pleasant?'

'It is pleasant to have a blow at a rascal. Ah, well! my fighting days are over. What does Pitt tell you?'

'About his voyage, papa; nothing else.'

'Are you going to let me hear it?'

Esther would a little rather have kept it to herself, simply because it was so precious to her. However, this question was a command, and she read the letter aloud to her father. With that the matter was disposed of, in all but her own mind. For the final result of the letter was to stir up all the pain the writer's absence had caused, and to add to it some new elements of aggravation. Esther had not realized, till those letters came, how entirely the writer of them had gone out of her world. In love and memory she had in a sort still kept him near; without vision she had yet been not fully separated from him. Now these pictures of the other world and of Pitt's life in it came like a bright, sheer blade severing the connection which had until then subsisted between her life and his. Yes, he was in another world! and there was no connection any longer. He had not forgotten her yet, but he would forget; how should he not? how could he help it? In the rich sweep of variety and change and eager action which filled his experience, what thought could he have any more for that quiet figure on the sofa, or this lonely little child, whose life contained no interest whatever! or how could his thoughts return at all to this dull room, where everything remained with no change from morning to night and from one week to another? Always Colonel Gainsborough there on the sofa; always that same green cloth covering the table in the middle of the floor, and the view of the snow-covered garden and road and fields outside the windows, with those everlasting pollard poplars along the fence. While Europe was in commotion, and armies rolling their masses over it, and Napoleon fleeing and Lord Wellington chasing, and every breath was full of eagerness and hope and triumph and purpose in that world without.

Esther fell back into a kind of despair. Pitt was gone from her; now she realized that fact thoroughly; not only gone in person, but moved far off in mind. Maybe he might write again, once or twice; very likely he would, for he was kind; but his life was henceforth separated from Seaforth and from all the other life that had its home there. The old cry for comfort began to sound in Esther's heart with a terrible urgency. Where was it to come from? And as the child had only one possible outlook for comfort, she began to set her face that way in a kind of resolute determination. That is, she began to shut herself up with her Bible and search it as a man who is poor searches for a hid treasure, or as one who is starving looks for something to eat. Nobody knew. She shut herself up and carried on her search alone, and troubled nobody with questions. Nobody ever noticed the air of the child; the grave, far-away look of her eyes; the pale face; the unnaturally quiet demeanour. At least nobody noticed it to any purpose. Mrs. Barker did communicate to Christopher her belief that that child was 'mopin' herself into ninety years old;' and they were both agreed that she ought to be sent to school. 'A girl don't grow just like one o' my cabbages,' said Mr. Bounder; 'that'll make a head for itself.'

'Miss Esther's got a head,' put in Mrs. Barker.

''Twon't be solid and that, if it ain't looked after,' retorted her brother. 'I don't s'pose you understand the natural world, though. What's the colonel thinkin' about?'

'That ain't your and my business, Christopher. But I do worrit myself about Miss Esther's face, the way I sees it sometimes.'

The colonel, it is true, did not see it as Mrs. Barker saw it. Not but that he might, if he had ever watched her. But he did not watch. It never occurred to him but that everything went right with Esther. When she made him his tea, she was attentive and womanly; when she read aloud to him, she read intelligently; and in the reciting of the few lessons she did with her father, there was always no fault to find. How could the colonel suppose anything was wrong? Life had become a dull, sad story to him; why should it be different to anybody else? Nay, the colonel would not have said that in words; it was rather the supine condition into which he had lapsed, than any conclusion of his intelligence; but the fact was, he had no realization of the fact that a child's life ought to be bright and gay. He accepted Esther's sedate unvarying tone and manner as quite the right thing, and found it suit him perfectly. Nobody else saw the girl, except at church. The family had not cultivated the society of their neighbours in the place, and Esther had no friends among them.

There was a long succession of months during which things went on after this fashion. Very weary months to Esther; indeed, months covered by so thick a gloom that part of the child's life consisted in the struggle to break it. Letters did not come frequently from Pitt, even to his father and mother; he wrote that it was difficult to get a vessel to take American letters at all, and that the chances were ten to one, if accepted, that they would never get to the hands they were intended for. American letters or American passengers were sometimes held to vitiate the neutrality of a vessel; and if chased she would be likely to throw them, that is, the former, overboard. Pitt was detained still in Lisbon by the difficulty of getting passports, as late as the middle of March, but expected then soon to sail for England. His passage was taken. So Mr. and Mrs. Dallas reported on one of their evening visits. They talked a great deal of politics at these visits, which sometimes interested Esther and sometimes bored her excessively; but this last bit of private news was brought one evening about the end of April.

'He has not gained much by his winter's work,' remarked the colonel. 'He might as well have studied this term at Yale.'

'He will not have lost his time,' said Mr. Dallas comfortably. 'He is there, that is one thing; and he is looking about him; and now he will have time to feel a little at home in England and make all his arrangements before his studies begin. It is very well as it is.'

'If you think so, it is,' said the colonel drily.

The next news was that Pitt had landed at Falmouth, and was going by post-chaise to London in a day or two. He reported having just got Lord Byron's two last poems,—'The Corsair' and 'The Bride of Abydos'; wished he could send them home, but that was not so easy.

'He had better send them home, or send them anywhere,' said the colonel; 'and give his attention to Sophocles and Euclid. Light poetry does not amount to anything; it is worse than waste of time.'

'I don't want a man to be made of Greek and Latin,' said Mrs. Dallas. 'Do you think, only the Ancients wrote what is worthy to be read, colonel?'

'They didn't write nonsense, my dear madam; and Byron does.'

'Nonsense!'

'Worse than nonsense.'

'Won't do to enquire too strictly into what the old Greeks and Romans wrote, if folks say true,' remarked Mr. Dallas slyly.

'In the dead languages it won't do a young man so much harm,' said the colonel. 'I hope William will give himself now to his Greek, since you have afforded him such opportunity.'

Mrs. Dallas's air, as she rose to take leave, was inimitably expressive of proud confidence and rejection of the question. Mr. Dallas laughed carelessly and said, as he shook the colonel's hand, 'No fear!'

The next news they had came direct. Another letter from Pitt to the colonel; and, as before, it enclosed one for Esther. Esther ran away again to have the first reading and indulge herself in the first impressions of it alone and free from question or observation. She even locked her door. This letter was written from London, and dated May 1814.

'MY DEAR QUEEN ESTHER,—I wish you were here, for we certainly would have some famous walks together. Do you know, I am in London? and that means, in one of the most wonderful places in the world. You can have no idea what sort of a place it is, and no words I can write will tell you. I have not got over my own sense of astonishment and admiration yet; indeed it is growing, not lessening; and every time I go out I come home more bewildered with what I have seen. Do you ask me why? In the first place, because it is so big. Next, because of the unimaginable throng of human beings of every grade and variety. Such a multitude of human lives crossing each other in an intraceable and interminable network; intraceable to the human eye, but what a sight it must be to the eye that sees all! All these people, so many hundreds of thousands, acting and reacting upon one another's happiness, prosperity, goodness, and badness. Now at such a place as Seaforth people are left a good deal to their individuality, and are comparatively independent of one another; but here I feel what a pressure and bondage men's lives draw round each other. It makes me catch my breath. You will not care about this, however, nor be able to understand me.

'But another thing you would care for, and delight in; and that is the historical associations of London. Queen Esther, it is delightful! You and I have looked at coins and read books together, and looked at history so; but here I seem to touch it. I have been to-day to Charing Cross, standing and wandering about, and wondering at the things that have happened there. Ask your father to tell you about Charing Cross. I could hardly come away. If you ask me how I know so well what happened there, I will tell you. I have found an old uncle here. You knew I had one? He lives just a little out of London, or out of the thick of London, in a place that is called Kensington; in a queer old house, which, however, I like very much, and that is filled with curiosities. It is in a pleasant situation, not far from one of the public parks,—though it is not called a park, but "Garden,"—and with one or two palaces and a number of noble mansions about it. My uncle received me very hospitably, and would have me come and make my home with him while I am in London. That is nice for me, and in many ways. He is a character, this old uncle of mine; something of an antiquary, a good deal of a hermit, a little eccentric, but stuffed with local knowledge, and indeed with knowledge of many sorts. I think he has taken a fancy to me somehow, Queen Esther; at any rate, he is very kind. He seems to like to go about with me and show me London, and explain to me what London is. He was there at Charing Cross with me, holding forth on history and politics—he's a great Tory; ask the colonel what that is; and really I seemed to see the ages rolling before me as he talked, and I looked at Northumberland House and at the brazen statue of Charles I. If I had time I would tell you about them, as Mr. Strahan told me. And yesterday I was in the House of Commons, and heard some great talking; and to-morrow we are going to the Tower. I think, if you were only here to go too, we should have a first-rate sort of a time. But I will try and tell you about it.

'And talking of history,—Mr. Strahan has some beautiful coins. There is one of Philip of Macedon, and two of Alexander; think of that, Queen Esther; and some exquisite gold pieces of Tarentum and Syracuse. How your eyes would look at them! Well, study up everything, so that when we meet again we may talk up all the world. I shall be very hard at work myself soon, as soon as I go to Oxford. In the meantime I am rather hard at work here, although to be sure the work is play.

'This is a very miserable bit of a letter, and nothing in it, just because I have so much to say. If I had time I would write it over, but I have not time. The next shall be better. I am a great deal with Mr. Strahan, in-doors as well as out. I wish I could show you his house, Queen. It is old and odd and pretty. Thick old walls, little windows in deep recesses; low ceilings and high ceilings, for different parts of the house are unlike each other; most beautiful dark oaken wainscotings, carved deliciously, and grown black with time; and big, hospitable chimney-pieces, with fires of English soft coal. Some of the rooms are rather dark, to me who am accustomed to the sun of America pouring in at a wealth of big windows; but others are to me quite charming. And this quaint old house is filled with treasures and curiosities. Mr. Strahan lives in it quite alone with two servants, a factotum of a housekeeper and another factotum of a man-servant. I must say I find it intelligible that he should take pleasure in having me with him. Good-bye for to-night. I'll write soon again.

'WM. PITT DALLAS.'

As on occasion of the former letter, Esther lingered long over the reading of this; her uneasiness not appeased by it at all; then at last went down to her father, to whom the uneasiness was quite unknown and unsuspected.

'I think William writes the longest letters to you,' he remarked. 'What does he say this time?'

Esther read her letter aloud.

'Will has fallen on his feet,' was the comment.

'What does he say to you, papa?'

'Not much; and yet a good deal. You may read for yourself.'

Which Esther did, eagerly. Pitt had told her father about his visit to the House of Commons.

'I had yesterday,' he wrote, 'a rare pleasure, which you, my dear colonel, would have appreciated. Mr. Strahan took me to the House of Commons; and I heard Mr. Canning, Mr. Whitbread, Mr. Wilberforce, Mr. Ponsonby, and others, on what question, do you think? Nothing less than the duty which lies upon England just at this moment, to use the advantage of her influence with her allies in Europe to get them to join with her in putting down the slave trade. It was a royal occasion; and the enjoyment of it quite beyond description. To-day I have been standing at Charing Cross, looking at the statue of Charles I., and wondering at the world. My grand-uncle is a good Tory and held forth eloquently as we stood there. Don't tell my mother! but privately, my dear colonel, I seem to discover in myself traces of Whiggism. Whether it be nature, or your influence, or the air of America, that has caused it to grow, I know not; but there it is. My mother would be very seriously disturbed if she suspected the fact. As to my father, I really never discovered to my satisfaction what his politics are. To Mr. Strahan I listen reverently. It is not necessary for me to say to him all that comes into my head. But it came into my head to-day, as I stood gazing up at the equestrian statue at Charing Cross, that it would better become the English people to have John Hampden there than that miserable old trickster, Charles Stuart.'

Esther read and re-read.

'Papa,' she said at last, 'what is a Tory?'

'It is a party name, my dear; it is given to a certain political party.'

'You are not a Tory?'

'No! If I had been, I should never have found my way here.' The colonel said it with a sigh.

'Then I suppose you are a Whig. And are Mr. and Mrs. Dallas Tories?'

'Humph!—Will says his mother is. He ought to know.'

'What is the difference, papa?'

'My dear, I don't know that you can understand. The names grew up in the old days when the Stuarts were trying to get all the power of the government into their own hands and to leave none to the people. Those who stood by the king, through thick and thin, were called Tories; those who tried to limit him and guard the people's liberties, were Whigs.'

'What queer names! Papa, are there Whigs and Tories in England now?'

'What are called so.'

'Are the kings still trying to get away the liberties of the people?'

'No, my child. Those are pretty well secured.'

'And here we have no king at all. I don't see how you can be a Whig, or Mrs. Dallas a Tory.'

'There are always the two parties. One, that sticks by the government and aims to strengthen its hands, right or wrong; and the other, that looks out for the liberties of the people and watches that they be not infringed or tampered with.'

Esther thought a while, but not exclusively over the political question. It might have occurred to an older person to wonder how William Pitt had got his name from parents who were both Tories. The fact was that here, as in many another case, money was the solution of the difficulty. A rich relation, who was also a radical, had promised a fine legacy to the boy if he were given the name of the famous Whig statesman, and Mr. Mrs. and Dallas had swallowed the pill per help of the sugar. About this Esther knew nothing.

'Papa,' she said, 'don't you think Pitt will get so fond of England that he will never want to come back?'

'It would not be strange if he did.'

'Is England so much better than America, papa?'

'It is England, my dear!' the colonel said, with an expression which meant, she could not tell what.



CHAPTER XV.

COMFORT.

These letters, on the whole, did not comfort Esther. The momentary intense pleasure was followed by inevitable dull reaction and contrast; and before she had well got over the effect of one batch of letters another came; and she was kept in a perpetual stir and conflict. For Pitt proved himself a good correspondent, although it was June before the first letter from his parents reached him. So he reported, writing on the third of that month; and told that the Allied Sovereigns were just then leaving Paris for a visit to the British Capital, and all the London world was on tiptoe. 'Great luck for me to be here just now,' he wrote; and so everybody at home agreed. Mrs. Dallas grew more stately, Esther thought, with every visit she made at the colonel's house; and she and her husband made many. It was a necessity to have some one to speak to about Pitt and Pitt's letters; and it was urgent likewise that Mrs. Dallas should know if letters had been received by the same mail at this other house. She always found out, one way or another; and then she would ask, 'May I see?' and scan with eager eyes the sheet the colonel generally granted her. Of the letters to Esther nothing was said, but Esther lived in fear and trembling that some inadvertent word might let her know of their existence.

Another necessity which brought the Dallases often to Colonel Gainsborough's was the political situation. They could hardly discuss it with anybody else in Seaforth, and what is the use of a political situation if you cannot discuss it? All the rest of the families in the neighbourhood were strong Americans; and even Pitt, in his letters, was more of an American than anything else. Indeed, so much more, that it gave his mother sad annoyance. He told of the temper of the English people at this juncture; of the demands to be made by the English government before they would hear of peace; of a strong force sent to Canada, and the general indignant and belligerent tone of feeling and speech among members of Parliament; but Pitt did not write as if he sympathized with it. 'He has lived here too long already!' sighed his mother.

'Not if he is destined to live here the rest of his life, my dear madam,' said the colonel.

'He will not do that. He will end by settling in England.'

'Will may have his own views, on that as on some other things.'

'By the time he has gone through the University and studied for his profession, he will be more of an Englishman than of an American,' Mr. Dallas observed contentedly. 'He will choose for himself.'

'What profession? Have you fixed upon one? or has he?'

'Time enough yet for that.'

'But your property lies here.'

'I am here to take care of it,' said Mr. Dallas, laughing a little.

All this sort of talk, which Esther heard often, with variations, made one thing clear to her, namely, that if it depended on his father and mother, Pitt's return to his native country would be long delayed or finally prevented. It did not entirely depend on them, everybody knew who knew him; nevertheless it seemed to Esther that the fascinations of the old world must be great, and the feeling of the distance between her and Pitt grew with every letter. It was not the fault of the letters or of the writer in any way, nor was it the effect the latter were intended to produce; but Esther grew more and more despondent about him. And then, after a few months, the letters became short and rare. Pitt had gone to Oxford; and, from the time of his entering the University, plunged head and ears into business, so eagerly that time and disposition failed for writing home. Letters did come, from time to time, but there was much less in them; and those for Colonel Gainsborough were at long intervals. So, when the second winter of Pitt's absence began to set in, Esther reckoned him, to all intents and purposes, lost to her life.

The girl went with increased eagerness and intentness to the one resource she had—her Bible. The cry for happiness is so natural to the human heart, that it takes long oppression to stifle it. The cry was strong in Esther's young nature—strong and imperative; and in all the world around her she saw no promise of help or supply. The spring at which she had slaked her thirst was dried up; the desert was as barren to her eye as it had been to Hagar's; but, unlike Hagar, she sought with a sort of desperate eagerness in one quarter where she believed water might be found. When people search in that way, unless they get discouraged, their search is apt to come to something; unless, indeed, they are going after a mirage, and it was no mirage that hovered before Esther,—no vision of anything, indeed; she was searching into the meaning of a promise.

And, as I said, nobody knew; nobody helped her; the months of that winter rolled slowly and gloomily over her. Esther was between fourteen and fifteen now; her mind just opening to a consciousness of its powers, and a growing dawn of its possibilities. Life was unfolding, not its meaning, but something of its extent and richness to her; less than ever could she content herself to have it a desert. The study went on all through the winter with no visible change or result. But with the breaking spring the darkness and ice-bound state of Esther's mind seemed to break up too. Another look came into the girl's face—a high quiet calm; a light like the light of the spring itself, so gracious and tender and sweet. Esther was changed. The duties which she had done all along with a dull punctuality were done now with a certain blessed alacrity; her eye got its life of expression again, and a smile more sweet than any former ones came readily to the lips. I do not think the colonel noticed all this; or if he noticed at all, he simply thought Esther was glad of the change of season; the winter, to be sure, had kept her very much shut up. The servants were more observing.

'Do you know, we're a-goin' to have a beauty in this 'ere house?' inquired Christopher one evening of his sister, with a look of sly search, as if to see whether she knew it.

'Air we?' asked the housekeeper.

'A beauty, and no mistake. Why, Sarah, can't you see it?'

'I sees all there is to see in the family,' the housekeeper returned with a superior air.

'Then you see that. She's grown and changed uncommon, within a year.'

'She's a very sweet young lady,' Mrs. Barker agreed.

'And she's goin' to be a stunner for looks,' Christopher repeated, with that same sly observation of his sister's face. 'She'll be better-lookin' than ever her mother was.'

'Mrs. Gainsborough was a handsome woman too,' said the housekeeper. 'But Miss Esther's very promisin'—you're right there; she's very promisin'. She's just beginnin' to show what she will be.'

'She's got over her dumps lately uncommon. I judged the dumps was natural enough, sitiwated as she is; but she's come out of 'em. She's openin' up like a white camellia; and there ain't anythin' that grows that has less shadow to it; though maybe it ain't what you'd call a gay flower,' added Christopher thoughtfully.

'Is that them stiff white flowers as has no smell to 'em?'

'The same, Mrs. Barker—if you mean what I mean.'

'Then I wouldn't liken Miss Esther to no sich. She's sweet, she is, and she ain't noways stiff. She has just which I call the manners a young lady ought to have.'

'Can't beat a white camellia for manners,' responded Christopher jocularly.

So the servants saw what the father did not. I think he hardly knew even that Esther was growing taller.

One evening in the spring, Esther was as usual making tea for her father. As usual also the tea-time was very silent. The colonel sometimes carried on his reading alongside of his tea-cup; at other times, perhaps, he pondered what he had been reading.

'Papa,' said Esther suddenly, 'would it be any harm if I wrote a letter to Pitt?'

The colonel did not answer at once.

'Do you want to write to him?'

'Yes, papa; I would like it—I would like to write once.'

'What do you want to write to him for?'

'I would like to tell him something that I think it would please him to hear.'

'What is that?'

'It is just something about myself, papa,' Esther said, a little hesitatingly.

'You may write, and I will enclose it in a letter of mine.'

'Thank you, papa.'

A day or two passed, and then Esther brought her letter. It was closed and sealed. The colonel took it and turned it over.

'There's a good deal of it,' he remarked. 'Was it needful to use so many words?'

'Papa,' said Esther, hesitating, 'I didn't think about how many words I was using.'

'You should have had thinner paper. Why did you seal it up?'

'Papa, I didn't think about that either. I only thought it had got to be sealed.'

'You did not wish to hinder my seeing what you had written?'

'No, papa,' said Esther, a little slowly.

'That will do.' And he laid the letter on one side, and Esther supposed the matter was disposed of. But when she had kissed him and gone off to bed, the colonel brought the letter before him again, looked at it, and finally broke the seal and opened it. There was a good deal of it, as he had remarked.

'Seaforth, May 11, 1815. 'MY DEAR PITT,—Papa has given me leave to write a letter to you; and I wanted to write, because I have something to tell you that I think you will be glad to hear. I am afraid I cannot tell it very well, for I am not much accustomed to writing letters; but I will do as well as I can.

'I am afraid it will take me some time to say what I want to say. I cannot put it in two or three sentences. You must have patience with me.

'Do you remember my telling you once that I wanted comfort? And do you remember my asking you once about the meaning of some words in the Bible, where I was looking for comfort, because mamma said it was the best place? We were sitting in the verandah, one afternoon. You had been away, to New Haven, and were home for vacation.

'Well, I partly forgot about it that summer, I was so happy. You know what a good time we had with everything, and I forgot about wanting comfort. But after you went away that autumn to Lisbon and to England, then the want came back. You were very good about writing, and I enjoyed your letters very much; and yet, somehow, every one seemed to make me feel a little worse than I did before. That is, after the first bit, you know. For an hour, perhaps, while I was reading it, and reading it the second time, and thinking about it, I was almost perfectly happy; the letters seemed to bring you near; but when just that first hour was passed, they made you seem farther off than ever; farther off every time. And then the want of comfort came back, and I did not know where to get it. There was nobody to ask, and no help at all, if I could not find it in the Bible. All that winter, and all the summer, last summer that was, and all the first part of this last winter, I did not know what to do, I wanted comfort so. I thought maybe you would never come back to Seaforth again; and you know there is nobody else here, and I was quite alone. I never do see anybody but papa, except Mr. and Mrs. Dallas, who come here once in a while. So I went to the Bible. I read, and I thought.

'Do you remember those words I once asked you about? Perhaps you do not, so I will write them down here. "The Lord make His face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee. The Lord lift up His countenance upon thee, and give the peace." Those are the words.

'Do you remember what you said at that time, about the pleasure of seeing a face that looks brightly and kindly upon one? only you did not know how that could be true of God, because we cannot really see His face? Well, I thought a great deal about that. You see, there are the words; and so, I thought, the thing must be possible somehow, and there must be some way in which they can be true, or the Bible would not say so. I began to pray that the Lord would make His face shine upon me. Then I remembered another thing. It is only the faces we love that we care about seeing—I mean, that we care about so very much; and it is only the faces that love us that can "shine" upon us. But I did not love God, for I did not know Him; and I knew He could not love me, for He knew me too well. So I began to pray a different prayer. I asked that God would teach me to love Him, and make me such a person that He could love me. It was all very dark and confused before my mind; I think I was like a person groping about and feeling for things he cannot see. It was very miserable, for I had no comfort at all; and the days and the nights were all sad and dark, only I kept a little bit of hope.

'Then I must tell you another thing. I had been doing nothing but praying and reading the Bible. But one day I came to these words, which struck me very much. They are in the fourteenth chapter of John:—

'"He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me; and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father; and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him."

'Do you notice those last words? That is like making the face shine, or lifting up the countenance upon a person. But then I saw that to get that, which I wanted. I must keep His commandments. I hardly knew what they were, and I began to read to find out. I had been only looking for comfort before. And as fast as I found out one of His commands, I began to do it, as far as I could. Pitt, His commandments are such beautiful things!

'And then, I don't know how it came or when it came, exactly, but I began to see His face. And it began to shine upon me. And the darkness began to go away, And now, Pitt, this is what I wanted to tell you: I have found comfort. I am not dark, and I don't feel alone any more. The promise is all true. I think He has manifested Himself to me; for I am sure I know Him a little, and I love Him a great deal; and everything seems changed. It is so changed, Pitt. I am happy now, and contented, and things seem beautiful to me again, as they used to do when you were here, only even more, I think.

'I thought you would be glad to know it, and so I have written all this long letter, and my fingers are really tired.

'Your loving friend,

'ESTHER GAINSBOROUGH.'

The colonel read this somewhat peculiar document with wondering attention. He got to the end, and began again, with his mind in a good deal of confusion. A second reading left him more confused than the first, and he began the third time. What did Esther mean by this want of comfort? How could she want comfort? And what was this strange thing that she had found? And how came she to be pouring out her mind in this fashion to Pitt, to him of all people? The colonel was half touched, half jealous, half awed. What had his child learned in her strange solitary Bible study? He had heard of religious ecstasies and religious enthusiasts; devotees; people set apart by a singular experience; was his Esther possibly going to be anything like that? He did not wish it. He wanted her certainly to be a good woman, and a religious woman; he did not want her to be extravagant. And this sounded extravagant, even visionary. How had she got it? What had Pitt Dallas to do with it? Was it for want of him that Esther had set up such a cry for comfort? The colonel liked nothing of all the questions that started up in his mind; and the only satisfactory thing was that in some way Esther seemed to be feeling happy. But her father did not want her to be given over to a visionary happiness, which in the end would desert her. He sat up a long time reading and brooding over the letter. Finally he closed it and sealed it again, and resolved to let it go off, and to have a talk with his daughter.



CHAPTER XVI.

REST AND UNREST.

It cost the colonel a strange amount of trouble to get to that talk. For an old soldier and man of the world to ask a little innocent girl about her meaning of words she had written, would seem a simple matter enough; but there was something about it that tied the colonel's tongue. He could not bring himself to broach the subject at breakfast, with the clear homely daylight streaming upon the breakfast table, and Esther moving about and attending to her usual morning duties; all he could do was to watch her furtively. This creature was growing up out of his knowledge; he looked to see what outward signs of change might be visible. He saw a fair, slim girl, no longer a little girl certainly, with a face that still was his child's face, he thought. And yet, as he looked, he slowly came to the conviction that it was the face of something more than a child. The old simplicity and the old purity were there indeed; but now there was a blessed calm upon the brow, and the calmness had a certain lofty quality; and the sweetness, which was more than ever, was refined and deep. It was not the sweetness of hilarious childhood, but something that had a more distant source than childhood draws from. The colonel ate his breakfast without knowing what he was eating; however, he could not talk to Esther at that time. He waited till evening had come round again, and the lamp was lit, and he was taking his toast and tea, with Esther ministering to him in her wonted course.

'How old are you, Esther?' he began suddenly.

'Near fifteen, papa.'

'Fifteen! Humph!'

'Why, papa? Had you forgotten?'

'At the moment.' Then he began again. 'I sent your letter off.'

'Thank you, papa.'

'It was sealed up. Why did you seal it? Did you mean me not to read it?'

Esther's eyes opened. 'I never thought about it, papa. I didn't know you would care to read it. I thought it must be sealed, and I sealed it.'

'I did care to read it, so I opened it. Had you any objection?'

'No, papa!' said Esther, wondering.

'And having opened it, I read it. I did not quite understand it, Esther.'

Esther made no reply.

'What do you want comfort so much for, my child? I thought you were happy—as happy as other children.'

'I am happy now, papa; more happy than other children.'

'But you were not?'

'No, papa; for a while I was not.'

'Why? What did you want, that you had not?—except your mother,' the colonel added, with a sigh of consciousness that there might be a missing something there.

'I was not thinking of her, papa,' Esther said slowly.

'Of what, then?' The colonel was intensely curious.

'I was very happy, as long as Pitt was at home.'

'William Dallas! But what is he to you? he's a collegian, and you are a little girl.'

'Papa, the collegian was very kind to the little girl,' Esther said, with a smile that was very bright, and also merry with a certain sense of humour.

'I grant it; still—it is unreasonable And was it because he was gone, that you wanted comfort?'

'I didn't want it, or I didn't know that I wanted it, while he was here.'

'People that don't know they need comfort, do not need it, I fancy. You draw fine distinctions. Well, go on, Esther. You have found it, your letter says.'

'Oh yes, papa.'

'My dear, I do not understand you; and I should like to understand. Can you tell me what you mean?'

As he raised his eyes to her, he saw a look come over her face that he could as little comprehend as he could comprehend her letter; a look of surprise at him, mingled with a sudden shine of some inner light. She was moving about the tea-table; she came round and stood in front of her father, full in view.

'Papa, I thought my letter explained it. I mean, that now I have come to know the Lord Jesus.'

'Now? My dear, I was under the impression that you had been taught and had known the truths of the gospel all your life?'

'Oh, yes, papa; so I was. The difference'—

'Well?'

'The difference, papa, is, that now I know Him.'

'Him? Whom?'

'I mean Jesus, papa.'

'How do you know Him? Do you mean that lately you have begun to think about Him?'

'No, papa, I had been thinking a great while.'

'And now?'—

'Now I have come to know Him.'

That Esther knew what she meant was evident; it was equally plain that the colonel did not. He was puzzled, and did not like to show it too fully. The one face was shining with clearness and gladness; the other was dissatisfied and perplexed.

'My dear, I do not understand you,' the colonel said, after a pause. 'Have you been reading mystical books? I did not know there were any in the house.'

'I have been reading only the Bible, papa; and that is not mystical.'

'Your language sounds so.'

'Why, no, papa! I do not mean anything mystical.'

'Will you explain yourself?'

Esther paused, thinking how she should do this. When one has used the simplest words in one's vocabulary, and is called upon to expound them by the use of others less simple, the task is somewhat critical. The colonel watched with a sort of disturbed pleasure the thoughtful, clear brow, the grave eyes which had become so sweet. The intelligence at work there, he saw, was no longer that of a child; the sweetness was no longer the blank of unconscious ignorance, but the wisdom of some blessed knowledge. What did she know that was hidden from his experience?

'Papa, it is very difficult to tell you,' Esther began. 'I used to know about the things in the Bible, and I had learned whole chapters by heart; but that was all. I did not know much more than the name of Christ,—and His history, of course, and His words.'

'What more could you know?' inquired the colonel, in increasing astonishment.

'That's just it, papa; I did not know Himself. You know what you mean when you say you don't know somebody. I mean just that.'

'But, Esther, that sounds to me very like—very like—an improper use of language,' said the colonel, stammering. 'How can you know Him, as you speak?'

'I can't tell you, papa. I think He showed Himself to me.'

'Showed Himself! Do you mean in a vision?'

'Oh no, papa!' said Esther, smiling. 'I have not seen His face, not literally. But He has somehow showed me how good He is, and how glorious; and has made me understand how He loves me, and how He is with me; so that I do not feel alone any more. I don't think I ever shall feel alone again.'

Was this extravagance? The colonel pondered. It seemed to him a thing to be rebuked or repressed; he knew nothing of this kind in his own religious experience; he feared it was visionary and fanciful. But when he looked at Esther's face, the words died on his tongue which he would have spoken. Those happy eyes were so strong in their wistfulness, so grave in their happiness, that they forbade the charge of folly or fancifulness; nay, they were looking at something which the colonel wished he could himself see, if the sight brought such contentment. They stopped his mouth. He could not say what he thought to say, and his own eyes oddly fell before them.

'What does William Dallas know about all this?' he asked.

'Nothing, papa. I don't think he knows it at all.'

'Why did you write about it to him, then?'

'I was sure he would be glad for me, papa. Once, a good while ago, I asked Pitt what could be the meaning of a verse in the Bible; that beautiful verse in Numbers; and he could not tell me, though what he said gave me a great help. So I knew he would remember, and he would be glad. And I want him to know Jesus too.'

The colonel felt a little twinge of jealousy here; but Esther did not know, he reflected, that her own father was in equal destitution of that knowledge. Or was it all visionary that she had been saying, and his view of religion the right one after all? It must be the right one. Yet his religion had never given his face the expression that shone in Esther's now. It almost hurt him.

'And now you have comfort?' he said, after a moment's pause.

'Yes, papa. More than comfort.'

'Because you think that God looks upon you with favour.'

'Because I love Him, papa. I know Him and I love Him. And I know He loves me, and will do everything for me.'

'How do you know it?' asked the colonel almost harshly. 'That sounds to me rather presuming. You may hope it; but how can you know it?'

'He has made me know it, papa. And He has said it in the Bible. I just believe what He says.'

Colonel Gainsborough gave up the argument. Before Esther's face of quiet confidence he felt himself baffled. If she were wrong, he could not prove her wrong. Uneasy and worsted, he gave up the discussion; but thought he would not have any more letters go to William Dallas.

And as the days went on, he watched furtively his daughter. He had not been mistaken in his observations that evening. A steadfastness of sweet happiness was about her, beautifying and elevating all she did and all she was. Fair quiet on the brow, loving gladness on the lips, and hands of ready ministry. She had always been a dutiful child, faithful in her ministering; but now the service was not of duty, but of love, and gracious accordingly, as the service of duty can never be. The colonel watched, and saw something of the difference, without being able, however, to come at a satisfactory understanding of it. He saw how, under this influence of love and gladness, his child was becoming the rarest of servants to him; and more still, how under it she was developing into a most exquisite personal beauty. He watched her, as if by watching he might catch something of the secret mental charm by virtue of which these changes were wrought. But 'the secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him;' and it cannot be communicated from one to another.

As has been mentioned, Pitt's letters after he got to work at Oxford became much fewer and scantier. It was only at very rare intervals that one came to Colonel Gainsborough; and Esther made no proposition of writing to England again. On that subject the colonel ceased to take any thought. It was otherwise with Pitt's family.

Mrs. Dallas sat one evening pondering over the last letter received from her son. It was early autumn; a little fire burning in the chimney, towards which the master of the house stretched out his legs, lying very much at his ease in an old-fashioned chaise lounge, and turning over an English newspaper. His attitude bespoke the comfortable ease and carelessness of his mind, on which certainly nothing lay heavy. His wife was in all things a contrast. Her handsome, stately figure was yielding at the moment to no blandishments of comfort or luxury; she sat upright, with Pitt's letter in her hand, and on her brow there was an expression of troubled consideration.

'Husband,' she said at length, 'do you notice how Pitt speaks of the colonel and his daughter?'

'No,' came slowly and indifferently from the lips of Mr. Dallas, as he turned the pages of his newspaper.

'Don't you notice how he asks after them in every letter, and wants me to go and see them?'

'Natural enough. Pitt is thinking of home, and he thinks of them;—part of the picture.'

'That boy don't forget!'

'Give him time,' suggested Mr. Dallas, with a careless yawn.

'He has had some time,—a year and a half, and in Europe; and distractions enough. But don't you know Pitt? He sticks to a thing even closer than you do.'

'If he cares enough about it.'

'That's what troubles me, Hildebrand. I am afraid he does care. If he comes home next summer and finds that girl— Do you know how she is growing up?'

'That is the worst of children,' said Mr. Dallas, in the same lazy way; 'they will grow up.'

'By next summer she will be—well, I don't know how old, but quite old enough to take the fancy of a boy like Pitt.'

'I know Pitt's age. He will be twenty-two. Old enough to know better. He isn't such a fool.'

'Such a fool as what?' asked Mrs. Dallas sharply. 'That girl is going to be handsome enough to take any man's fancy, and hold it too. She is uncommonly striking. Don't you see it?'

'Humph! yes, I see it.'

'Hildebrand, I do not want him to marry the daughter of a dissenting colonel, with not money enough to dress her.'

'I do not mean he shall.'

'Then think how you are going to prevent it. Next summer, I warn you, it may be too late.'

In consequence, perhaps, of this conversation, though it is by no means certain that Mr. Dallas needed its suggestions, he strolled over after tea to Colonel Gainsborough's. The colonel was in his usual place and position; Esther sitting at the table with her books. Mr. Dallas eyed her as she rose to receive him, noticed the gracious, quiet manner, the fair and noble face, the easy movement and fine bearing; and turned to her father with a strengthened purpose to do what he had come to do. He had to wait a while. He told the news of Pitt's last letter; intimated that he meant to keep him in England till his studies were all ended; and then went into a discussion of politics, deep and dry. When Esther at last left the room, he made a sudden break in the discussion.

'Colonel, what are you going to do with that girl of yours?'

'What am I going to do with her?' repeated the colonel, a little drily.

'Yes. Forgive me; I have known her all her life, you know, nearly. I am concerned about Esther.'

'In what way?'

'Well, don't take it ill of me; but I do not like to see her growing up so without any advantages. She is such a beautiful creature.'

Colonel Gainsborough was silent.

'I take the interest of a friend,' Mr. Dallas went on. 'I have a right to so much. I have watched her growing up. She will be something uncommon, you know. She ought really to have everything that can help to make humanity perfect.'

'What would you have me do?' the colonel asked, half conscious and half impatient.

'I would give her all the advantages that a girl of her birth and breeding would have in the old country.'

'How is that possible, at Seaforth?'

'It is not possible at Seaforth. There is nothing here. But elsewhere it is possible.'

'I shall never leave Seaforth,' said the colonel doggedly.

'But for Esther's sake? Why, she ought to be at school now, colonel.'

'I shall never quit Seaforth,' the other repeated. 'I do not expect to live long anywhere; when I die, I will lie by my wife's side, here.'

'You are not failing in health,' Mr. Dallas persisted. 'You are improving, colonel; every time I come to see you I am convinced of it. We shall have you a long while among us yet; you may depend on it.'

'I have no particular reason to wish you may be right. And I see myself no signs that you are.'

'You have your daughter to live for.'

'She will be taken care of. I have little fear.'

There was a somewhat grim set of Mr. Dallas's mouth in answer to this speech; his words however were 'smoother than butter.'

'You need have no fear,' he said. 'Miss Gainsborough, with her birth and beauty and breeding, will do—what you must wish her to do,—marry some one well able to take care of her; but—you are not doing her justice, colonel, in not giving her the education that should go with her birth and breeding. I speak as a friend; I trust you will not take it ill of me.'

'I cannot send her to England.'

'You do not need. There are excellent institutions of learning in this country now.'

'I do not know where.'

'My wife can tell you. She has some knowledge of such things, through friends who have daughters at school. She could tell you of several good schools for girls.'

'Where are they?'

'I believe in or near New York.'

'I do not wish to leave Seaforth,' said the colonel gloomily.

'And I am sure we do not wish to have you leave it,' said the other, rising. 'It would be a terrible loss to us. Perhaps, after all, I have been officious; and you are giving Esther an education more than equal to what she could get at school.'

'I cannot quit Seaforth,' the colonel repeated. 'All that I care for in the world lies here. When I have done with the world, I wish to lie here too; and till then I will wait.'

Mr. Dallas took his leave; and the set of his mouth was grim again as he walked home.



CHAPTER XVII.

MOVING.

Mr. Dallas's visits became frequent. He talked of a great variety of things, but never failed to bring the colonel's mind to the subject of Esther's want of education. Indirectly or directly, somehow, he presented to the colonel's mind that one idea: that his daughter was going without the advantages she needed and ought to have. It was true, and the colonel could not easily dispose of the thought which his friend so persistently held up before him. Waters wear away stones, as we know to a proverb; and so it befell in this case, and Mr. Dallas knew it must. The colonel began to grow uneasy. He often reasserted that he would never leave Seaforth; he began to think about it, nevertheless.

'What should I do with this place?' he asked one evening when the subject was up.

'What do you wish to do with it?'

'I wish to live in it as long as I live anywhere,' said the colonel, sighing; 'but you say—and perhaps you are right—that I ought to be somewhere else for my child's sake. In that case, what could I do with my place here?'

'I ask again, what do you wish to do with it? Would you let it?'

'No,' said the colonel, sighing again; 'if I go I must sell. My means will not allow me to do otherwise.'

'I will buy it of you, if you wish to sell.'

'You! What would you do with the property?'

'Keep it for you, against a time when you may wish to buy it back. But indeed it would come very conveniently for me. I should like to have it, for my own purposes. I will give you its utmost value.'

The colonel pondered, not glad, perhaps, to have difficulties cleared out of his way. Mr. Dallas waited, too keen to press his point unduly.

'I should have to go and reconnoitre,' the former said presently. 'I must not give up one home till I have another ready. I never thought to leave Seaforth. Where do you say this place is that Mrs. Dallas recommends?'

'In New York. The school is said to be particularly good and thorough, and conducted by an English lady; which would be a recommendation to me, as I suppose it is to you.'

'I should have to find a house in the neighbourhood,' said the colonel, musing.

Mr. Dallas said no more, and waited.

'I must go and see what I can find,' the colonel repeated. 'Perhaps Mrs. Dallas will be so good as to give me the address of the school in question.'

Mrs. Dallas did more than that. She gave letters to friends, and addresses of more than one school teacher: and the end was, Colonel Gainsborough set off on a search. The search was successful. He was satisfied with the testimonials he received respecting one of the institutions and respecting its head; he was directed by some of Mr. Dallas's business friends to various houses that might suit him for a residence; and among them made his choice, and even made his bargain, and came home with the business settled.

Esther had spent the days of his absence in a very doubtful mood, not knowing whether to be glad or sorry, to hope or to fear. Seaforth was the only home she had ever known; she did not like the thought of leaving it; but she knew by this time as well as Mr. Dallas knew that she needed more advantages of education than Seaforth could give her. On the whole, she hoped.

The colonel was absent several days. There was no telegraphing in those times, and so the day of his return could not be notified; but when a week had passed, Esther began to look for him. It was the first time he had ever been away from her, and so, of course, it was the first coming home. Esther felt it deserved some sort of celebration. The stage arrived towards evening, she knew.

'I think maybe he will be here to-night, Barker,' she said. 'What is there we could have for supper that papa likes particularly?'

'Indeed, Miss Esther, the colonel favours nothing more than another, as I know. His toast and tea, that is all he cares for nights, mostly.'

'Toast and tea!' said Esther disparagingly.

'It's the most he cares for, as I know,' the housekeeper repeated. 'There's them quails Mr. Dallas sent over; they's nice and fat, and to be sure quails had ought to be eaten immediate. I can roast two or three of 'em, if you're pleased to order it; but the colonel, it's my opinion he won't care what you have. The gentlemen learns it so in the army, I'm thinkin'. The colonel never did give himself no care about what he had for dinner, nor for no other time.'

Esther knew that; however, she ordered the quails, and watched eagerly for her father. He came, too, that same evening. But the quails hardly got their deserts, nor Esther neither, for that matter. The colonel seemed to be unregardful of the one as much as of the other. He gave his child a sufficiently kind greeting, indeed, when he first came in; but then he took his usual seat on the sofa, without his usual book, and sat as if lost in thought. Tea was served immediately, and I suppose the colonel had had a thin dinner, for he consumed a quail and a half; yet satisfactory as this was in itself, Esther could not see that her father knew what he was eating. And after tea he still neglected his book, and sat brooding, with his head leaning on his hand. He had not said one word to his daughter concerning the success or non-success of his mission; and eager as she was, it was not in accordance with the way she had been brought up that she should question him. She asked him nothing further than about his own health and condition, and the length and character of his journey; which questions were shortly disposed of, and then the colonel sat there with his head in his hand, doing nothing that he was wont to do. Esther feared something was troubling him, and could not bear to leave him to himself. She came near softly, and very softly let her finger-tips touch her father's brow and temples, and stroke back the hair from them. She ventured no more.

Perhaps Colonel Gainsborough could not bear so much. Perhaps he was reminded of the only other fingers which had had a right since his boyhood to touch him so. Yet he would not repel the gentle hand, and to avoid doing that he did another very uncommon thing; he drew Esther down into his arms and put her on his knee, leaning his head against her shoulder. It was exceeding pleasant to the girl, as a touch of sympathy and confidence; however, for that night the confidence went no further; the colonel said nothing at all. He was in truth overcome with the sadness of leaving his home and his habits and the place of his wife's grave. As he re-entered Seaforth and entered his house, this sadness had come over him; he could not shake it off; indeed, he did not try; he gave him self up to it, and forgot Esther, or rather forgot what he owed her. And Esther, who had done what she could, sat still on her father's knee till she was weary, and wished he would release her. Yet perhaps, she thought, it was a pleasure to him to have her there, and she would not move or speak. So they remained until it was past Esther's bedtime.

'I think I will go now, papa,' she said. 'It is getting late.'

He kissed her and let her go.

But next morning the colonel was himself again,—himself as if he had never been away, only he had his news to tell; and he told it in orderly business fashion.

'I have taken a house, Esther,' he said; 'and now I wish to get moved as soon as possible. You must tell Barker, and help her.'

'Certainly, papa. Whereabouts is the house you have taken?'

'On York Island. It is about a mile out of the city, on the bank of the river; a very pretty situation.'

'Which river, papa?'

'The Hudson.'

'And am I to go to school?'

'Of course. That is the purpose of the movement. You are to enter Miss Fairbairn's school in New York. It is the best there, by all I can gather.'

'Thank you, papa. Then it is not near our new house?'

'No. You will have to drive there and back. I have made arrangements for that.'

'Won't that cost a good deal, papa?'

'Not so much as to live in the city would cost. And we are accustomed to the country; it will be pleasanter.'

'Oh, much pleasanter! What will be done with this house, papa?'

'Mr. Dallas takes it and the place off my hands.'

Esther did not like that; why, she could not possibly have told. For, to be sure, what could be better?

'Will he buy it?'

'Yes, he buys it.'

Again a little pause. Then—'What will become of the furniture and everything, papa?'

'That must be packed to go. The house I have taken is empty. We shall want all we have got.'

Esther's eye went round the room. Everything to be packed! She stood like a young general, surveying her battlefield.

'Then, papa, you never mean to come back to Seaforth again?'

The colonel sighed. 'Yes, when I die, Esther. I wish my bones to be laid here.'

He said no more. Having made his communications, he took up his book; his manner evidently saying to Esther that in what came next he had no particular share. But could it be that he was leaving it all to her inexperience? Was it to be her work, and depend on her wisdom?

'Papa, you said we were to move soon; do you wish me to arrange with Barker about it?'

'Yes, my dear, yes; tell her, and arrange with her. I wish to make the change as early as possible, before the weather becomes unfavourable; and I wish you to get to school immediately. It cannot be too soon, tell Barker.'

So he was going to leave it all to her! On ordinary occasions he was wont to consider Esther a child still; now it was convenient to suppose her a woman. He did not put it so to himself; it is some men's way. Esther went slowly to the kitchen, and informed Barker of what was before her.

'An' it's mor'n the middle of October,' was the housekeeper's comment.

'That's very good time,' said Esther.

'You're right, Miss Esther, and so it is, if we was all ready this minute. All ain't done when you are moved, Miss Esther; there's the other house to settle; and it'll take a good bit o' work before we get so far as to that.'

'Papa wants us to be as quick as we can.'

'We'll be as quick as two pair o' hands is able for, I'll warrant; but that ain't as if we was a dozen. There's every indiwiddle thing to put up, Miss Esther, from our chairs to our beds; and books, and china, and all I'll go at the china fust of all, and to-day.'

'And what can I do, Barker?'

'I don' know, Miss Esther. You hain't no experience; and experience is somethin' you can't buy in the shops—even if there was any shops here to speak of. But Christopher and me, we'll manage it, I'll warrant. The colonel's quite right. This ain't no place for you no longer. We'll see and get moved as quick as we can, Miss Esther.'

Without experience, however, it was found that Esther's share of the next weeks of work was a very important one. She packed up the clothes and the books; and she did it 'real uncommon,' the housekeeper said; but that was the least part. She kept her father comfortable, letting none of the confusion and as little as possible of the dust come into the room where he was. She stood in the gap when Barker was in the thick of some job, and herself prepared her father's soup or got his tea. Thoughtful, quiet, diligent, her head, young as it was, proved often a very useful help to Barker's experience; and something about her smooth composure was a stay to the tired nerves of her subordinates. Though Christopher Bounder really had no nerves, yet he felt the influence I speak of.

'Ain't our Miss Esther growed to be a stunner, though!' he remarked more than once.

'I'm sure I don't rightly know what you mean, Christopher,' his sister answered.

'Well, I tell you she's an uncommon handsome young lady, Sarah. An' she has the real way with her; the real thing, she has.'

'What do you mean by that?'

'I'll wager a cucumber you can tell,' said Christopher, shutting up his eyes slyly. 'There ain't no flesh and blood round in these parts like that;—no mor'n a cabbage ain't like a camellia. An' that don't tell it. She's that dainty and sweet as a camellia never was—not as ever I see; and she has that fine, soft way with her, that is like the touch of a feather, and yet ain't soft neither if you come to go agin it. I tell you what, Sarah, that shows blood, that does,' concluded Christopher with a competent air. 'Our young lady, she's the real thing. You and me, now, we couldn't be like that if we was to die for it. That's blood, that is.'

'I don't know,' said the housekeeper. 'She is sweet, uncommon; and she is gentle enough, and she has a will of her own, too; but I don't know—she didn't use for to be just so.'

''Cause she's growin' up to years,' said the gardener. 'La, Sally, folks is like vegetables, uncommon; you must let 'em drop their rough leaves, before you can see what they're goin' to be.'

'There warn't never no rough leaves nor rough anything about Miss Esther. I can't say as I knows what you mean, Christopher.'

'A woman needn't to know everything,' responded her brother with superiority; 'and the natural world, to be sure, ain't your department, Sarah. You're good for a great deal where you be.'



CHAPTER XVIII.

A NEIGHBOUR.

The packing and sending off of boxes was ended at last; and the bare, empty, echoing, forlorn house seemed of itself to eject its inhabitants. When it came to that, everybody was ready to go. Mrs. Barker lamented that she could not go on before the rest of the family, to prepare the place a bit for them; but that was impossible; they must all go together.

It was the middle of November when at last the family made their flitting. They had no dear friends to leave, and nothing particular to regret, except that one low mound in the churchyard; yet Esther felt sober as they drove away. The only tangible reason for this on which her thoughts could fix, was the fact that she was going away from the place where Pitt Dallas was at home, and to which he would come when he returned from England. She would then be afar off. Yet there would be nothing to hinder his coming to see them in their new home; so the feeling did not seem well justified. Besides that, Esther also had a somewhat vague sense that she was leaving the domain of childhood and entering upon the work and sphere of a woman. She was just going to school! But perhaps the time of confusion she had been passing through might have revealed to her that she had already a woman's life-work on her hands. And the confusion was not over, and the work only begun. She had perhaps a dim sense of this. However, she was young; and the soberness was certainly mixed with gladness. For was she not going to school, and so, on the way to do something of the work Pitt was doing, in mental furnishing and improvement? I think, gladness had the upper hand.

It took two days of stage travelling to get them to their destination. They were days full of interest and novelty for Esther; eager anticipation and hope; but the end of the second day found her well tired. Indeed, it was the case with them all. Mrs. Barker had lamented that she and Christopher were not allowed to go off some time before 'the family,' so as to have things in a certain degree of readiness for them; the colonel had said it was impossible: they could not be spared from Seaforth until the last minute. And now here they were 'all in a heap,' as Mrs Barker expressed it, 'to be tumbled into the house at once.' She begged that the colonel would stay the night over in the city, and give her at least a few hours to prepare for him. The colonel would not hear of it, however, but at once procured vehicles to take the whole party and their boxes out to the place that was to be their new home. It was then already evening; the short November day had closed in.

'He's that simple,' Mrs. Barker confided to her brother, 'he expects to find a fire made and a room ready for him! It's like all the gentlemen. They never takes no a 'Thinks the furniture 'll hop out o' the boxes, like, 'count of how things is done, if it ain't their things.' and stan' round,' echoed Christopher. 'I'm afeard they won't be so obligin'.'

The drive was somewhat slower in the dark than it would have been otherwise, and the stars were out and looking down brilliantly upon the little party as they finally dismounted at their door. The shadow of the house rising before them, a cool air from the river, the sparkling stars above, the vague darkness around; Esther never forgot that home-coming.

They had stopped at a neighbour's house to get the key; and now, the front door being unlocked, made their way in, one after another. Esther was confronted first by a great packing-case in the narrow hall, which blocked up the way. Going carefully round this, which there was just room to do, she stumbled over a smaller box on the floor.

'Oh, papa, take care!' she cried to her father, who was following her; 'the house is all full of things, and it is so dark. Oh, Barker, can't you open the back door and let in a gleam of light?'

This was done, and also in due time a lantern was brought upon the scene. It revealed a state of things almost as hopeless as the world appeared to Noah's dove the first time she was sent out of the ark. If there was rest for the soles of their feet, it was all that could be said. There was no promise of a place to sit down; and as for lying down and getting their natural rest, the idea was Utopian.

'Now look here,' said a voice suddenly out of the darkness outside: 'you're all fagged out, ain't ye? and there ain't nothin' on arth ye kin du to-night; there's no use o' your tryin'. Jes' come over to my house and hev some supper. Ye must want it bad. Ben travellin' all day, ain't ye? Jes' come over to me; I've got some hot supper for ye. Lands sakes! ye kin't do nothin' here to-night. It is a kind of a turn-up, ain't it? La, a movin's wuss'n a weddin', for puttin' everybody out.'

The voice, sounding at first from the outside, had been gradually drawing nearer and nearer, till with the last words the speaker also entered the back room, where Esther and her father were standing. They were standing in the midst of packing-cases, of every size and shape, between which the shadows lay dark, while the faint lantern light just served to show the rough edges and angles of the boxes and the hopeless condition of things generally. It served also now to let the new-comer be dimly seen. Esther and her father, looking towards the door, perceived a stout little figure, with her two hands rolled up in her shawl, head bare, and with hair in neat order, for it glanced in the lantern shine as only smooth things can. The features of the face were not discernible.

'It's the cunnel himself, ain't it?' she said. 'They said he was a tall man, and I see this is a tall un. Is it the cunnel himself? I couldn't somehow make out the name—I never kin; and I kin't see nothin', as the light is.'

'At your service, madam,' said the person addressed. 'Colonel Gainsborough.'

The visitor dropped a little dot of a curtsey, which seemed to Esther inexpressibly funny, and went on.

'Beg pardon for not knowin'. Wall, cunnel, I'm sure you're tired and hungry,—you and your darter, is it?—and I've got a hot supper for you over to my house. I allays think there's nothin' like hevin' things hot,—cold comfort ain't no comfort, for me,—and I've got everythin' hot for you—hot and nice; and now, will you come over and eat it? You see, you kin't do nothin' here to-night. I don't see how ever you're to sleep, in this world; there ain't nothin' here but the floor and the boxes, and if you'll take beds with me, I'm sure you're welcome.'

'I thank you, madam; you are very kind; but I do not think we need trouble you,' the colonel said, with civil formality. Esther was amused, but also a little eager that her father should accept the invitation. What else would become of him? she thought. The prospect was desolation. Truly they had some cooked provisions; but that was only cold comfort, as their visitor had said; doubtful if the term could be applied at all.

'Now you'd jes' best come right over!' the fluent but kind voice said persuasively. 'It's all spilin' to be eat. An' what kin you do? There ain't no fire here to warm you, and it'll take a bit of a while before you kin get one; an' you're all tired out. Jes' come over and hev a cup o' hot coffee, and get heartened up a bit, and then you'll know what to do next. I allays think, one thing at a time.'

'Papa,' said Esther a little timidly, 'hadn't you better do it? There's nothing but confusion here; it will be a long time before we can get you even a cup of tea.'

'It's all ready,' their visitor went on,—'ready and spilin'; an' I got it for you o' purpose. Now don't stan' thinkin' about it, but jes' come right over; I'll be as glad to hev you as if you was new apples.'

'How far is it, ma'am?' Esther asked.

'Jes' two steps—down the other side o' the field; it's the very next house to your'n. Oh, I've lived there a matter o' ten year; and I was main glad to hear there was somebody comin' in here agin; it's so sort o' lonesome to see the winders allays shut up; and your light looks real cheery, if it is only a lantern light. I knowed when you was a comin', and says I, they'll be real tired out when they gits there, says I; and I'll hev a hot supper ready for 'em, it's all I kin du; but I'm sure, if you'll sleep, you're welcome.'