Esther

"Do you know I have a little brother at home, who is a sad invalid;"

and then I told them about Dot, about his patience and his sweet ways, and how he amused himself when he could not get off his couch for weeks; and as I warmed and grew eloquent with my subject, their eyes became round and fixed, and a sort of dawning interest woke up on their solemn faces; they forgot I was a stranger, and came closer, and Belle laid a podgy and a very dirty hand on my lap.

"How old is your little boy?" asked Lucy, in a shrill whisper. And as I answered her Mrs. Thorne and Carrie re-entered the room. They both looked surprised when they saw the children grouped round me; Carrie"s eyebrows elevated themselves a little quizzically, and Mrs.

Thorne called them away rather sharply.

"Don"t take liberties with strangers, children. What will Miss Cameron think of such manners?" And then she dismissed them rather summarily. I saw Annie steal a little wistful look at me as she followed her sisters.

We took our leave after that. Mrs. Thorne shook hands with us very graciously, but her parting words were addressed to Carrie. "On Monday, then. Please give my kind regards to Dr. Cameron, and tell him how thoroughly satisfied I am with the proposed arrangement." And Carrie answered very prettily, but as the door closed she sighed heavily.

"Oh, what children! and what a mother!" she gasped, as she took my arm, and turned my foot-steps away from the house. "Never mind Jack, I am going to the service at St. Barnabas; I want some refreshment after what I have been through." And she sighed again.

"But, Carrie," I remonstrated, "I have no time to spare. You know how Jack has been neglected, and how I have promised Allan to do my best for her until we can afford to send her to school."

"You can walk with me to the church door," she returned, decidedly.

I was beginning to find out that Carrie could be self-willed sometimes. "I must talk to you, Esther; I must tell you how I hate it. Fancy trying to hammer French and music into those children"s heads, when I might--I might--" But here she stopped, actually on the verge of crying.

"Oh, my darling, Carrie!" I burst out, for I never could bear to see her sweet face clouded for a moment, and she so seldom cried or gave way to any emotion. "Why would you not let me speak? I might have saved you this. I might have offered myself in your stead, and set you free for pleasanter work." But she shook her head, and struggled for composure.

"You would not have done for Mrs. Thorne, Esther. Don"t think me vain if I say that I play and sing far better than you."

"A thousand times better," I interposed. "And then you can draw."

"Well, Mrs. Thorne is a woman who values accomplishments. You are clever at some things; you speak French fairly, and then you are a good Latin scholar" (for Allan and I studied that together); "you can lay a solid foundation, as Uncle Geoffrey says; but Mrs. Thorne does not care about that," continued Carrie a little bitterly; "she wants a flimsy superstructure of accomplishments--music, and French, and drawing, as much as I can teach a useful life-work, Esther."

"Well, why not?" I returned, with a little spirit, for here was one of Carrie"s old arguments. "If it be the work given us to do, it must be a useful life-work. It might be our duty to make artificial flowers for our livelihood--hundreds of poor creatures do that--and you would not scold them for waste of time, I suppose?"

"Anyhow, it is not work enough for me," replied Carrie firmly, and pa.s.sing over my clever argument with a dignified silence; "it is the drudgery of mere ornamentation that I hate. I will do my best for those dreadful children, Esther. Are they not pitiful little overdressed creatures? And I will try and please their mother though I have not a thought in common with her. And when I have finished my ornamental brick-making--told my tales of the bricks----" here she paused, and looked at me with a heightened color.

"And what then?" I asked, rather crossly, for there was a flaw in her speech somewhere, and I could not find it out.

"We shall see, my wise little sister," she said, letting go my arm with a kind pressure. "See, here is St. Barnabas; is it not a dear old building? Must you go back to Jack?"

"Yes, I must," I answered, shortly. "_Laborare est orare_--to labor is to pray, in my case, Carrie;" and with that I left her.

But Carrie"s arguments had seriously discomposed me. I longed to talk it all out with Allan, and I do not think I ever missed him so much as I did that day. I am afraid I was rather impatient with Jack that morning; to be sure she was terribly awkward and inattentive; she would put her elbows on the table, and ink her fingers, and then she had a way of jerking her hair out of her eyes, which drove me nearly frantic. I began to think we really must send her to school.

We had done away with the folding doors, they always creaked so, and had hung up some curtains in their stead; through the folds I could catch glimpses of dear mother leaning back in her chair, with Dot beside her. He was spelling over his lesson to her, in a queer, little sing-song voice, and they looked so cool and quiet that the contrast was quite provoking; and there was Carrie kneeling in some dim corner, and soothing her perturbed spirits with softly-uttered psalms and prayers.

"Jack," I returned, for the sixth time, "I cannot have you kick the table in that schoolboy fashion."

Jack looked at me with roguish malice in her eyes. "You are not quite well, Esther; you have got a pain in your temper, haven"t you, now?"

I don"t know what I might have answered, for Jack was right, and I was as cross as possible, only just at that moment Uncle Geoffrey put his head in at the door, and stood beaming on us like an angel of deliverance.

"Fee-fo-fum," for he sometimes called Jack by that charming _sobriquet_, indeed, he was always inventing names for her, "it is too hot for work, isn"t it? I think I must give you a holiday, for I want Esther to go out with me." Uncle Geoffrey"s wishes were law, and I rose at once; but not all my secret feelings of relief could prevent me from indulging in a parting thrust.

"I don"t think Jack deserves the holiday," I remarked, with a severe look at the culprit; and Jack jerked her hair over her eyes this time in some confusion.

"Hullo, Fee-fo-fum, what have you been up to? Giving Esther trouble?

Oh, fie! fie!"

"I only kicked the table," returned Jack, sullenly, "because I hate lessons--that I do, Uncle Geoffrey--and I inked my fingers because I liked it; and I put my elbows on the copy-book because Esther said I wasn"t to do it; and my hair got in my eyes; and William the Conqueror had six wives, I know he had; and I told Esther she had a pain in her temper, because she was as cross as two sticks; and I don"t remember any more, and I don"t care," finished Jack, who could be like a mule on occasions.

Uncle Geoffrey laughed--he could not help it--and then he patted Jack kindly on her rough locks. "Clever little Fee-fo-fum; so William the Conqueror had six wives, had he? Come, this is capital; we must send you to school, Jack, that is what we must do. Esther cannot be in two places at once." What did he mean by that, I wonder! And then he bid me run off and put on my hat, and not keep him waiting.

Jack"s brief sullenness soon vanished, and she followed me out of the room to give me a penitent hug--that was so like Jack; the inky caress was a doubtful consolation, but I liked it, somehow.

"Where are you going, Uncle Geoff?" I asked, as we walked up the High street, followed by Jumbles, while Jack and Smudge watched us from the door.

"Miss Lucas wants to see you," he returned, briefly. "Bless me, there is Carrie, deep in conversation with Mr. Smedley. Where on earth has the girl picked him up?" And there, true enough, was Carrie, standing in the porch, talking eagerly to a fresh-colored, benevolent-looking man, whom I knew by sight as the vicar of St.

Barnabas.

She must have waylaid him after service, for the other worshipers had dropped off; we had met two or three of them in the High street.

I do not know why the sight displeased me, for of course she had a right to speak to her clergyman. Uncle Geoffrey whistled under his breath, and then laughed and wondered "what the little saint had to say to her pastor;" but I did not let him go on, for I was too excited with our errand.

"Why does Miss Lucas want to see me?" I asked, with a little beating of the heart. The Lucas family were the richest people in Milnthorpe.

Mr. Lucas was the banker, and kept his carriage, and had a pretty cottage somewhere by the seaside; they were Uncle Geoffrey"s patients, I knew, but what had that to do with poor little me?

"Miss Lucas wants to find some one to teach her little niece,"

returned Uncle Geoffrey; and then I remembered all at once that Mr. Lucas was a widower with one little girl. He had lost his wife about a year ago, and his sister had come to live with him and take care of his motherless child. What a chance this would have been for Carrie! but now it was too late. I was half afraid as we came up to the great red brick house, it was so grand and imposing, and so was the solemn-looking butler who opened the door and ushered us into the drawing-room.

As we crossed the hall some one came suddenly out on us from a dark lobby, and paused when he saw us. "Dr. Cameron! This is your niece, I suppose, whom my sister Ruth is expecting?" and as he shook hands with us he looked at me a little keenly, I thought. He was younger than I expected; it flashed across me suddenly that I had once seen his poor wife. I was standing looking out of the window one cold winter"s day, when a carriage drove up to the door with a lady wrapped in furs. I remember Uncle Geoffrey went out to speak to her, and what a smile came over her face when she saw him. She was very pale, but very beautiful; every one said so in Milnthorpe, for she had been much beloved.

"My sister is in the drawing-room; you must excuse me if I say I am in a great hurry," and then he pa.s.sed on with a bow. I thought him very formidable, the sort of man who would be feared as well as respected by his dependants. He had the character of being a very reserved man, with a great many acquaintances and few intimate friends. I had no idea at that time that no one understood him so well as Uncle Geoffrey.

I was decidedly nervous when I followed Uncle Geoffrey meekly into the drawing-room. Its size and splendor did not diminish my fears, and I little imagined then how I should get to love that room.

It was a little low, in spite of its s.p.a.ciousness, and its three long windows opened in French fashion on to the garden. I had a glimpse of the lawn, with a grand old cedar in the middle, before my eyes were attracted to a lady in deep mourning, writing in a little alcove, half curtained off from the rest of the room, and looking decidedly cozy.

The moment she turned her face toward us at the mention of our names, my unpleasant feelings of nervousness vanished. She was such a little woman--slightly deformed, too--with a pale, sickly-looking face, and large, clear eyes, that seemed to attract sympathy at once, for they seemed to say to one, "I am only a timid, simple little creature. You need not be afraid of me."

I was not very tall, but I almost looked down on her as she gave me her hand.

"I was expecting you, Miss Cameron," she said, in such a sweet tone that it quite won my heart. "Your uncle kindly promised to introduce us to each other."

And then she looked at me, not keenly and scrutinizingly, as her brother had done, but with a kindly inquisitiveness, as though she wanted to know all about me, and to put me at my ease as soon as possible. I flushed a little at that, and my unfortunate sensitiveness took alarm. If it were only Carrie, I thought, with her pretty face and soft voice; but I was so sadly unattractive, no one would be taken with me at first sight. Fred had once said so in my hearing, and how I had cried over that speech!

"Esther looks older than she is; but she is only seventeen,"

interposed Uncle Geoffrey, as he saw that unlucky blush. "She is a good girl, and very industrious, and her mother"s right hand," went on the simple man. If I only could have plucked up spirit and contradicted him, but I felt tongue-tied.

"She looks very reliable," returned Miss Lucas, in the kindest way.

To this day I believe she could not find any compliment compatible with truth. I once told her so months afterward, when we were very good friends, and she laughed and could not deny it.

"You were frowning so, Esther," she replied, "from excess of nervousness, I believe, that your forehead was quite lost in your hair, and your great eyes were looking at me in such a funny, frightened way, and the corners of your mouth all coming down, I thought you were five-and-twenty at least, and wondered what I was to do with such a proud, repellant-looking young woman; but when you smiled I began to see then."

I had not reached the smiling stage just then, and was revolving her speech in rather a dispirited way. Reliable! I knew I was that; when all at once she left off looking at me, and began talking to Uncle Geoffrey.

"And so you have finished all your Good Samaritan arrangements, Dr.

Cameron; and your poor sister-in-law and her family are really settled in your house? You must let me know when I may call, or if I can be of any use. Giles told me all about it, and I was so interested."