h
him." And Esther smiled and nodded: "I'll try."

"Perhaps you would like to see the rose bush to which my sister
referred," began the minister nervously as they stepped out upon the
lawn. "It is a very fine rose, but pink, I regret to say, pink. It is
unfortunate that Annabel should dislike pink so much. I think myself
that a pink rose is very pretty. Something a little different from the
red and white varieties."

Esther murmured, "Naturally," and opened her strange eyes widely so
that he could see the mischief which was like a blue flash in the depths
of them. He coloured faintly.

"I fear I am talking nonsense! The fact is that I am thinking of
something else. Something so important that it occupies my mind
completely. That is why, Esther, I wished to speak with you alone."

The girl was thoroughly interested now. She was flattered also. Miss
Annabel had been right. Something was troubling the minister. And she,
Esther, was to be his confidant. To her untroubled, girlish conceit
(girls are very wise!) it seemed natural enough. She had no doubt of
her ability to help him. Therefore her face and her answering "Yes?"
were warmly encouraging.

It is a general belief that a woman always knows, instinctively, when a
man is going to propose to her. She cannot be taken unawares; her
flutter, her surprise, her hesitancy are assumed as being artistically
suitable, but her unpreparedness is never bona fide. If this be the true
psychology of the matter then Esther's case was the exception which
proves the rule. No warning came to her, no intuition. She was still
looking at the minister with that warm expression of impersonal
interest, when, without further preliminaries, he began his halting
avowal of love.

Had the poor pink rose-bush suddenly flamed into crimson she could
scarcely have been more surprised. She caught her breath with the shock
of it! But shocks are quickly over. One adjusts one's self with
incredible swiftness. A moment--and it seemed to Esther that she ought
to have been expecting this. That she ought to have known it all along.
Thousands of trifles mocked at her for her blindness, thousands of
unheeded voices shrieked the truth into her opened ears. She felt
miserably guilty. Not yet had she arrived at the stage when she could
justify her blindness and deafness to herself. Later, she would
understand how custom, the life-long habit of regarding the minister as
a man apart, had helped to dull her per