tears into Esther's eyes and making her heart swell.
Like many men, and many women, for the matter of that, Colonel
Gainsborough had very little power of association. He would indeed have
regarded with sacred reverence anything that had once belonged to his
wife, down to her shoe; in that one instance the tension of feeling was
strong enough to make the chords tremble under the lightest touch. In
other relations, what did it matter? They were nothing to him; and if
Colonel Gainsborough made his own estimate the standard of the worth of
things, he only did what I am afraid we all do, more or less. At any
rate, his was not one of those finer strung natures which recognise the
possibility of worlds of knowledge and feeling not open to themselves.
It is also just possible that he divined his daughter's sentiment in
regard to the flowers enough to be jealous of it.

But Esther did not immediately move to obey his order. She sat on the
floor with the big book before her, the open page showing a half dry
blossom of the Mecranthon geranium which was still to her eyes very
beautiful. And all the associations of that pleasant Christmas
afternoon when Pitt had brought it and told her what its name was, rose
up before her. She was exceedingly unwilling to burn it. The colonel
perhaps had a guess that he had given a hard command; for he did not
look again at Esther or speak to her, or take any notice of her delay
of obedience. That she would obey he knew; and he let her take her
time. So he did not see the big tears that filled her eyes, nor the
quiet way in which she got rid of them; while the hurt, sorrowful,
regretful look on her face would have certainly moved Pitt to
indignation if he had been where he could see it. I am afraid, if the
colonel had seen it, _he_ would have been moved quite in a different
way. Not to anger, indeed; Colonel Gainsborough was never angry with
his child, as truly she never gave him cause; but I think he would
privately have applauded the wisdom of his regulation, which removed
such objects of misplaced sentiment out of the way of doing further
harm. And Esther sat and looked at the Mecranthon, brushed away her
tears softly, swallowed her regrets and unwillingness, and finally rose
up, carried her book to the fire, and one by one, turning the leaves,
took out her drying favourites and threw them into the glowing grate.
It was done; and she carried the book away and put it in its old place.

But a we