ugh to read to-day, sir?'

'Yes,' said the colonel, 'yes. One must do something. As long as one
lives, one must try to do something. Bring your book here, William, if
you please. I can listen, lying here.'

The hour that followed was an hour of steady work. The colonel liked
his young neighbour, who belonged to a family also of English
extraction, though not quite so recently moved over as the colonel's
own. Still, to all intents and purposes, the Dallases were English; had
English connections and English sympathies; and had not so long mingled
their blood with American that the colour of it was materially altered.
It was natural that the two families should have drawn near together in
social and friendly relations; which relations, however, would have
been closer if in church matters there had not been a diverging power,
which kept them from any extravagance of neighbourliness. This young
fellow, however, whom the colonel called 'William,' showed a
carelessness as to church matters which gave him some of the advantages
of a neutral ground; and latterly, since his wife's death, Colonel
Gainsborough had taken earnestly to the fine, spirited young man;
welcomed his presence when he came; and at last, partly out of
sympathy, partly out of sheer loneliness and emptiness of life, he had
offered to read the classics with him, in preparation for college. And
this for several months now they had been doing; so that William was a
daily visitor in the colonel's house.

CHAPTER III.

_THE BOX OF COINS_.

The reading went on for a good hour. Then the colonel rose from his
sofa and went out, and young Dallas turned to Esther. During this hour
Esther had been sitting still in her corner by her boxes; not doing
anything; and her face, which had brightened at William's first coming
in, had fallen back very nearly to its former heavy expression. Now it
lighted up again, as the visitor left his seat and came over to her. He
had not been so taken up with his reading but he had noticed her from
time to time; observed the drooping brow and the dull eye, and the sad
lines of the lips, and the still, spiritless attitude. He was touched
with pity for the child, whom he had once been accustomed to see very
different from this. He came and threw himself down on the floor by her
side.

'Well, Queen Esther!' said he. 'What have you got there?'

'Coins.'

'Coins! What are you doing with them?'

'Nothing.'

'So it seems. What d