hing seems changed. It is _so_ changed, Pitt. I am happy now, and
contented, and things seem beautiful to me again, as they used to do
when you were here, only even more, I think.

'I thought you would be glad to know it, and so I have written all this
long letter, and my fingers are really tired.

'Your loving friend,

'ESTHER GAINSBOROUGH.'

The colonel read this somewhat peculiar document with wondering
attention. He got to the end, and began again, with his mind in a good
deal of confusion. A second reading left him more confused than the
first, and he began the third time. What did Esther mean by this want
of comfort? How could she want comfort? And what was this strange thing
that she had found? And how came she to be pouring out her mind in this
fashion to Pitt, to him of all people? The colonel was half touched,
half jealous, half awed. What had his child learned in her strange
solitary Bible study? He had heard of religious ecstasies and religious
enthusiasts; devotees; people set apart by a singular experience; was
his Esther possibly going to be anything like that? He did not wish it.
He wanted her certainly to be a good woman, and a religious woman; he
did not want her to be extravagant. And this sounded extravagant, even
visionary. How had she got it? What had Pitt Dallas to do with it? Was
it for want of _him_ that Esther had set up such a cry for comfort? The
colonel liked nothing of all the questions that started up in his mind;
and the only satisfactory thing was that in some way Esther seemed to
be feeling happy. But her father did not want her to be given over to a
visionary happiness, which in the end would desert her. He sat up a
long time reading and brooding over the letter. Finally he closed it
and sealed it again, and resolved to let it go off, and to have a talk
with his daughter.

CHAPTER XVI.

_REST AND UNREST_.

It cost the colonel a strange amount of trouble to get to that talk.
For an old soldier and man of the world to ask a little innocent girl
about her meaning of words she had written, would seem a simple matter
enough; but there was something about it that tied the colonel's
tongue. He could not bring himself to broach the subject at breakfast,
with the clear homely daylight streaming upon the breakfast table, and
Esther moving about and attending to her usual morning duties; all he
could do was to watch her furtively. This creature was growing up out
of his knowled