o sympathize with her. And if she
grew up so, shut up to herself, every feeling and desire repressed for
want of expression or of somebody to express it to, how would her
nature ever develop? would it not grow stunted and poor, compared with
what it might be? He was sorry for his little playmate and friend; and
it did the young fellow credit, I think, for at his age boys are not
wont to be tenderly sympathetic towards anything, unless it be a
beloved mother or sister. Pitt silently watched the putting the flowers
in water, speculating upon the very unhopeful condition of this little
human plant, and revolving schemes in his mind.

After he had gone, Colonel Gainsborough bade Esther show him her
flowers. She brought the dish to his sofa. The colonel reviewed them
with a somewhat jealous eye, did not seem to perceive their beauty, and
told her to take them away again. But the next day, when Esther was not
in the room, he examined the collection carefully, looking to see if
there were anything that looked like contraband 'Christmas greens.'
There were some sprigs of laurel and holly, that served to make the
hues of the bouquet more varied and rich. _That_ the colonel did not
think of; all he saw was that they were bits of the objectionable
'Christmas.' Colonel Gainsborough carefully pulled them out and threw
them in the fire; and nothing, I fear, saved the laurustinus and
japonica from a like fate but their exquisite large blossoms. Esther
was not slow to miss the green leaves abstracted from her vase.

'Papa,' she said, in some bewilderment, 'I think somebody has been at
my flowers; there is some green gone.'

'I took out some sprigs of laurel and holly,' said her father. 'I
cannot have any Christmas decorations here.'

'Oh, papa, Pitt did not mean them for any such thing!'

'Whether he meant it or no, I prefer not to have them there.'

Esther was silenced, but she watched her vase with rather anxious eyes
after that time. However, there was no more meddling; the brilliant
blossoms were allowed to adorn the place and Esther's life as long as
they would, or could. She cherished them to the utmost of her
knowledge, all the rather that Pitt was gone away again; she gave them
fresh water, she trimmed off the unsightly dry leaves and withered
blossoms; but all would not do; they lasted for a time, and then
followed the law of their existence and faded. What Esther did then,
was to fetch a large old book and lay the diffe