e afternoon was cloudy and gray, with flakes of snow dropping
occasionally through a despondent air. After the sleigh had gone, Strong
still gazed down the road, as though he expected to see something, but
the road was bare.

He had stayed at home under the pretense of writing letters, and now
returned to the sitting-room, where Esther was sketching from the window
a view of the cataract. She went quietly on with her work, while he sat
down to write as well as his conscience would allow him; for now that he
saw how much good Esther's escape had done her, how quiet she had become
again, and how her look of trouble had vanished, leaving only a tender
little air of gravity, as she worked in the silence of her memories; and
when he thought how violently this serenity was likely to be disturbed,
his conscience smote him, he bitterly regretted his interference, and
roundly denounced himself for a fool.

"Does Mr. Wharton really care for Catherine?" asked Esther, as she went
on with her sketch.

"I guess he thinks he does," answered Strong. "He looks at her as though
he would eat her."

"What a pity!"

"He is tough! Don't waste sympathy on him! If she took him, he would
make her a slave within a week. As it is, his passion will go into his
painting."

"She is a practical young savage," said Esther. "I thought at one time
she was dazzled by him, but the moment she saw how unfit she was for
such a man, she gave it up without a pang."

"I don't see her unfitness," replied Strong. "She has plenty of beauty,
more common sense than he, and some money which would help him amazingly
except that he would soon spend it. I should say it was he who wanted
fitness, but you can't harness a mustang with a unicorn."

"He wants me to study in Paris," said Esther; "but I mean to go to Rome
and Venice. I am afraid to tell him."

"When do you expect to be there?"

"Some time in May, if we can get any one to take us."

"Perhaps I will look you up in the summer. If I do not go to Oregon, I
may run over to Germany."

"We shall be terribly homesick," replied Esther.

Silence now followed till Strong finished his letters and looked again
at his watch. It was four o'clock. "If he is coming," thought Strong,
"it is time he were here; but I would draw him a check for his church if
he would stay away." The jingling of sleigh-bells made itself heard on
the road below as though to rebuke him, and presently a cry of fright
from Esther at the