rial power. At last, remembering that she must not stay too long,
she folded the letter up and returned to her father. He had taken _his_
letter coolly, she saw, and gone back to his book. How far his world
was from hers! Absolutely, Pitt's letter was nothing to him.

'Well, my dear,' said he, after a while observing her, 'what does he
say?'

'I suppose he told you, papa, what happened to him?'

'No, he did not; he only told me what is happening to the world. He has
gone to Europe at a grand time!'

'What is happening to the world, papa?'

'My dear, that arch-usurper and mischief-maker, Napoleon Buonaparte,
has been beaten by the allied armies at Leipzig--driven back over the
Rhine. It's glorious news! I wish I was with Lord Wellington.'

'To fight, papa?'

'Certainly. I would like to have a hand in what is going on. If I
could,' he added with a sigh.

'But papa, I should think fighting was not pleasant work?'

'Women's fighting is not.'

'Is men's fighting, papa? _Pleasant?_'

'It is pleasant to have a blow at a rascal. Ah, well! my fighting days
are over. What does Pitt tell you?'

'About his voyage, papa; nothing else.'

'Are you going to let me hear it?'

Esther would a little rather have kept it to herself, simply because it
was so precious to her. However, this question was a command, and she
read the letter aloud to her father. With that the matter was disposed
of, in all but her own mind. For the final result of the letter was to
stir up all the pain the writer's absence had caused, and to add to it
some new elements of aggravation. Esther had not realized, till those
letters came, how entirely the writer of them had gone out of her
world. In love and memory she had in a sort still kept him near;
without vision she had yet been not fully separated from him. Now these
pictures of the other world and of Pitt's life in it came like a
bright, sheer blade severing the connection which had until then
subsisted between her life and his. Yes, he was in another world! and
there was no connection any longer. He had not forgotten her yet, but
he would forget; how should he not? how could he help it? In the rich
sweep of variety and change and eager action which filled his
experience, what thought could he have any more for that quiet figure
on the sofa, or this lonely little child, whose life contained no
interest whatever! or how could his thoughts return at all to this dull
room, where everything remain