d womanly; when she read
aloud to him, she read intelligently; and in the reciting of the few
lessons she did with her father, there was always no fault to find. How
could the colonel suppose anything was wrong? Life had become a dull,
sad story to him; why should it be different to anybody else? Nay, the
colonel would not have said that in words; it was rather the supine
condition into which he had lapsed, than any conclusion of his
intelligence; but the fact was, he had no realization of the fact that
a child's life ought to be bright and gay. He accepted Esther's sedate
unvarying tone and manner as quite the right thing, and found it suit
him perfectly. Nobody else saw the girl, except at church. The family
had not cultivated the society of their neighbours in the place, and
Esther had no friends among them.

There was a long succession of months during which things went on after
this fashion. Very weary months to Esther; indeed, months covered by so
thick a gloom that part of the child's life consisted in the struggle
to break it. Letters did not come frequently from Pitt, even to his
father and mother; he wrote that it was difficult to get a vessel to
take American letters at all, and that the chances were ten to one, if
accepted, that they would never get to the hands they were intended
for. American letters or American passengers were sometimes held to
vitiate the neutrality of a vessel; and if chased she would be likely
to throw them, that is, the former, overboard. Pitt was detained still
in Lisbon by the difficulty of getting passports, as late as the middle
of March, but expected then soon to sail for England. His passage was
taken. So Mr. and Mrs. Dallas reported on one of their evening visits.
They talked a great deal of politics at these visits, which sometimes
interested Esther and sometimes bored her excessively; but this last
bit of private news was brought one evening about the end of April.

'He has not gained much by his winter's work,' remarked the colonel.
'He might as well have studied this term at Yale.'

'He will not have lost his time,' said Mr. Dallas comfortably. 'He is
there, that is one thing; and he is looking about him; and now he will
have time to feel a little at home in England and make all his
arrangements before his studies begin. It is very well as it is.'

'If you think so, it is,' said the colonel drily.

The next news was that Pitt had landed at Falmouth, and was going by
po