nd
where all the bells were ringing for fire, or something else. She
looked eagerly about for her uncle, and saw at least fifty men who
resembled him, as she saw him last, about ten years ago. She fumbled
nervously for his address in her pocket-book, and gave Mr. Newton
a recipe for making mince pies instead; finally she found herself
tumbled in among cushions and driving right into carriages and carts
and people, who all got themselves mysteriously out of the way; down
streets that she thought must surely be the ones that the bells
were ringing for, as they were all ablaze. It had been arranged that
Ester's escort should see her safely set down at her uncle's door,
as she had been unable to state the precise time of her arrival; and
besides, as she was an entire stranger to her uncle's family, they
could not determine any convenient plan for meeting each other at the
depot. So Ester was whirled through the streets at a dizzying rate,
and, with eyes and ears filled with bewildering sights and sounds, was
finally deposited before a great building, aglow with gas and gleaming
with marble. Mr. Newton rang the bell, and Ester, making confused
adieus to him, was meantime ushered into a hall looking not unlike
Judge Warren's best parlor. A sense of awe, not unmixed with
loneliness and almost terror, stole over her as the man who opened the
door stood waiting, after a civil--"Whom do you wish to see, and what
name shall I send up?"

"Whom _did_ she wish to see, and what _was_ her name, anyway. Could
this be her uncle's house? Did she want to see any of them?" She felt
half afraid of them all. Suddenly the dignity and grandeur seemed
to melt into gentleness before her, as the tiniest of little women
appeared and a bright, young voice broke into hearty welcome:

"Is this really my cousin Ester? And so you have come! How perfectly
splendid. Where is Mr. Newton? Gone? Why, John, you ought to have
smuggled him in to dinner. We are _so_ much obliged to him for taking
care of _you_. John, send those trunks up to my room. You'll room with
me, Ester, won't you? Mother thought I ought to put you in solitary
state in a spare chamber, but I couldn't. You see I have been so many
years waiting for you, that now I want you every bit of the time."

All this while she was giving her loving little pats and kisses, on
their way up stairs, whither she at once carried the traveler. Such a
perfect gem of a room as that was into which she was ush