Affection and confidence are very winning
things, even if not given by a beautiful girl who will soon be a
beautiful woman; but looking out from Esther's innocent eyes, they went
down into the bottom of young Dallas's heart. And besides, his nature
was not only kind and noble; it was obstinate. Opposition, to him, in a
thing he thought good to pursue, was like blows of a hammer on a nail;
drove the purpose farther in.

So he made himself, it is true, very pleasant indeed to his parents at
home, that night and the next morning; but then he went with Esther
after cedar and hemlock branches. It may be asked, what opposition had
he hitherto found to his intercourse with the colonel's daughter? And
it must be answered, none. Nevertheless, Pitt felt it in the air, and
it had the effect on him that the north wind and cold are said to have
upon timber.

It was a day of days for Esther. First the delightful roving walk, and
cutting the greens, which were bestowed in a cart that attended them;
then the wonderful novelty of dressing the house. Esther had never seen
anything of the kind before, which did not hinder her, however, from
giving very good help. The hall, the sitting-room, the drawing-room,
and even Pitt's particular, out-of-the-way work-room, all were wreathed
and adorned and dressed up, each after its manner. For Pitt would not
have one place a repetition of another. The bright berries of the
winterberry and bittersweet were mingled with the dark shade of the
evergreens in many ingenious ways; but the crowning triumph of art,
perhaps, to Esther's eyes, was a motto in green letters, picked out
with brilliant partridge berries, over the end of the
sitting-room,--'Peace on earth.' Esther stood in delighted admiration
before it, also pondering.

'Pitt,' she said at last, 'those partridge berries ought not to be in
it.'

'Why not?' said Pitt, in astonishment. 'I think they set it off
capitally.'

'Oh, so they do. I didn't mean that. They are beautiful, very. But you
know what you said about them.'

'What did I say?'

'You said they were poison.'

'Poison! What then, Queen Esther? they won't hurt anybody up there. No
partridge will get at them.'

'Oh no, it isn't that, Pitt; but I was thinking--Poison shouldn't be in
that message of the angels.'

Pitt's face lighted up.

'Queen Esther,' said he solemnly, 'are you going to be _that_ sort of
person?'

'What sort of person?'

'One of those whose spirits are