party as they finally dismounted at their door. The shadow of
the house rising before them, a cool air from the river, the sparkling
stars above, the vague darkness around; Esther never forgot that
home-coming.

They had stopped at a neighbour's house to get the key; and now, the
front door being unlocked, made their way in, one after another. Esther
was confronted first by a great packing-case in the narrow hall, which
blocked up the way. Going carefully round this, which there was just
room to do, she stumbled over a smaller box on the floor.

'Oh, papa, take care!' she cried to her father, who was following her;
'the house is all full of things, and it is so dark. Oh, Barker, can't
you open the back door and let in a gleam of light?'

This was done, and also in due time a lantern was brought upon the
scene. It revealed a state of things almost as hopeless as the world
appeared to Noah's dove the first time she was sent out of the ark. If
there was rest for the soles of their feet, it was all that could be
said. There was no promise of a place to sit down; and as for _lying_
down and getting their natural rest, the idea was Utopian.

'Now look here,' said a voice suddenly out of the darkness outside:
'you're all fagged out, ain't ye? and there ain't nothin' on arth ye
kin du to-night; there's no use o' your tryin'. Jes' come over to my
house and hev some supper. Ye must want it bad. Ben travellin' all day,
ain't ye? Jes' come over to me; I've got some hot supper for ye. Lands
sakes! ye kin't do nothin' here to-night. It _is_ a kind of a turn-up,
ain't it? La, a movin's wuss'n a weddin', for puttin' everybody out.'

The voice, sounding at first from the outside, had been gradually
drawing nearer and nearer, till with the last words the speaker also
entered the back room, where Esther and her father were standing. They
were standing in the midst of packing-cases, of every size and shape,
between which the shadows lay dark, while the faint lantern light just
served to show the rough edges and angles of the boxes and the hopeless
condition of things generally. It served also now to let the new-comer
be dimly seen. Esther and her father, looking towards the door,
perceived a stout little figure, with her two hands rolled up in her
shawl, head bare, and with hair in neat order, for it glanced in the
lantern shine as only smooth things can. The features of the face were
not discernible.

'It's the cunnel himself, ain'