and heaps of silk stockings--"

"Jane, why do you say 'lots' and 'piles' and 'heaps' when you know you
are exaggerating?"

But there was a note of anxiety in the reproof nevertheless.

"I'm not exaggerating, Esther! She did. Even Miss Bremner asked her what
she was going to do with them all."

The elder girl's fingers tightened upon the small hand she held. Her red
lips set themselves in a firm line. In face of a danger which she could
see and measure Esther had courage enough. And she had faced this
particular danger before.

"Mother will tell me all about it, no doubt," she said calmly. "Did she
get me something pretty, too?"

"Yes. It's a surprise."

"And when she got all the pretty things I suppose she told the clerks to
charge them?"

"Oh, no. She paid for them out of her purse."

Esther was conscious of a swift reaction. The things were paid for. Of
course Jane had exaggerated. Children have no sense of value. Some
dainty things, Mrs. Coombe was sure to buy; but, as Esther well knew,
her slender stock of money would hardly have run to "piles" and "heaps."
And of course she had been unjust in fearing that Mary had gone into
debt. They had one experience of that kind, an experience which had
ended in a solemn promise that it would never happen again. Mary
understood the position as well as she did.

As the girl's thought trailed naturally into the problem paths of every
day, her weeks of freedom, her new interests, the strange experience in
the manse garden seemed already remote. With the little frown of
accustomed perplexity slipping in between her straight, black brows, her
deeper agitation quieted. The unusual has no antidote so effective as
the commonplace.

They found Mrs. Coombe waiting for them on the veranda. Lying back in
the shade, in her white dress she looked very much at her ease. Yet a
quick observer might have noticed a certain anxiety in the glance she
tried to render merely welcoming. She was thinner than she had been;
tired lines dragged at the corners of the pouting mouth and dark circles
showed plainly through their dusting of pearl powder. Changes which
creep in unnoticed when one sees a person every day are startlingly
apparent when absence has forced a clearer focus. Esther had known that
her step-mother had changed, was changing, but as she bent over her now,
the extent of the change shocked her. With a tightening at her heart
she wondered what her father would say if he could