ughts could fix, was the fact that she was going away from the
place where Pitt Dallas was at home, and to which he would come when he
returned from England. She would then be afar off. Yet there would be
nothing to hinder his coming to see them in their new home; so the
feeling did not seem well justified. Besides that, Esther also had a
somewhat vague sense that she was leaving the domain of childhood and
entering upon the work and sphere of a woman. She was just going to
school! But perhaps the time of confusion she had been passing through
might have revealed to her that she had already a woman's life-work on
her hands. And the confusion was not over, and the work only begun. She
had perhaps a dim sense of this. However, she was young; and the
soberness was certainly mixed with gladness. For was she not going to
school, and so, on the way to do something of the work Pitt was doing,
in mental furnishing and improvement? I think, gladness had the upper
hand.

It took two days of stage travelling to get them to their destination.
They were days full of interest and novelty for Esther; eager
anticipation and hope; but the end of the second day found her well
tired. Indeed, it was the case with them all. Mrs. Barker had lamented
that she and Christopher were not allowed to go off some time before
'the family,' so as to have things in a certain degree of readiness for
them; the colonel had said it was impossible: they could not be spared
from Seaforth until the last minute. And now here they were 'all in a
heap,' as Mrs Barker expressed it, 'to be tumbled into the house at
once.' She begged that the colonel would stay the night over in the
city, and give her at least a few hours to prepare for him. The colonel
would not hear of it, however, but at once procured vehicles to take
the whole party and their boxes out to the place that was to be their
new home. It was then already evening; the short November day had
closed in.

'He's that simple,' Mrs. Barker confided to her brother, 'he expects to
find a fire made and a room ready for him! It's like all the gentlemen.
They never takes no a 'Thinks the furniture 'll hop out o' the boxes,
like, 'count of how things is done, if it ain't _their_ things.' and
stan' round,' echoed Christopher. 'I'm afeard they won't be so
obligin'.'

The drive was somewhat slower in the dark than it would have been
otherwise, and the stars were out and looking down brilliantly upon the
little