our light looks
real cheery, if it is only a lantern light. I knowed when you was a
comin', and says I, they'll be real tired out when they gits there,
says I; and I'll hev a hot supper ready for 'em, it's all I kin du; but
I'm sure, if you'll sleep, you're welcome.'

'If you please, sir,' put in Mrs. Barker, 'it would be the most
advisedest thing you could do; for there ain't no prospect here, and if
you and Miss Esther was away for a bit, mebbe me and Christopher would
come to see daylight after a while; which it is what I don't do at
present.'

The good woman's voice sounded so thoroughly perturbed, and expressed
such an undoubted earnest desire, that the colonel, contrary to all his
traditions, gave in. He and Esther followed their new friend, ''cross
the field,' as she said, but they hardly knew where, till the light and
warmth of her hospitable house received them.

How strange it was! The short walk in the starlight; then the homely
hospitable room, with its spread table--the pumpkin pie, and the
sausage, and the pickles, and the cheese, and the cake! The very coarse
tablecloth; the little two-pronged forks, and knives which might have
been cut out of sheet iron, and singular ware which did service for
china. The extreme homeliness of it all would almost have hindered
Esther from eating, though she was very hungry. But there was good
bread and butter; and coffee that was hot, and not bad otherwise,
although assuredly it never saw the land of Arabia; certainly it seemed
very good to Esther that night, even taken from a pewter spoon. And the
tablecloth was clean, and everything upon it. So, with doubtful
hesitation at first, Esther found the supper good, and learned her
first lesson in the broadness of humanity and the wide variety in the
ways of human life.

Their hostess, seen by the light of her dip candles, was in perfect
harmony with her entertainment. A round little woman, very neat, and
terribly plain, with a full oval face, which had no other
characteristic of beauty; insignificant features, and a pale skin,
covered with freckles. Out of this face, however, looked a pair of
small, shrewd, and kind grey eyes; their owner could be no fool.

Esther was surprised to see that her father, who was, to be sure, an
old campaigner, made a very fair supper.

'In the darkness I could hardly see where we went,' he remarked. 'But I
suppose your husband is the owner of the neat gardens I observed
formerly near our