s a set of toilet furniture; in another place a fresh chintz
cover; in a fourth, a rug that matched the carpet and hid an ugly darn
in it. Esther made all these things and did all these things herself;
they cost her father nothing, or next to nothing, and they did not even
ask for Mrs. Barker's time, and they were little things, but the effect
of them was not so. They gave the house that finished, comfortable,
home-like air, which nothing does give but the graceful touch of a
woman's fingers. Mrs. Barker admired; the colonel did not see what was
done; but Esther did not work for admiration. She was satisfying the
demand of her own nature, which in all things she had to do with called
for finish, fitness, and grace; her fingers were charmed fingers,
because the soul that governed them had itself such a charm, and worked
by its own standard, as a honey bee makes her cell. Indeed, the simile
of the honey bee would fit in more points than one; for the cell of the
little winged worker is not fuller of sweetness than the girl made all
her own particular domicile. If the whole truth must be told, however,
there was another thought stirring in her, as she hung her curtains and
laid her rugs; a half recognised thought, which gave a zest to every
additional touch of comfort or prettiness which she bestowed on the
house. She thought Pitt would be there, and she wanted the impression
made upon him to be the pleasantest possible. He would surely be there;
he was coming home; he would never let the vacation go by without
trying to find his old friends. It was a constant spring of pleasure to
Esther, that secret hope. She said nothing about it; her father, she
knew, did not care so much for Pitt Dallas as she did; but privately
she counted the days and measured the time, and went into countless
calculations for which she possessed no sufficient data. She knew that,
yet she could not help calculating. The whole summer was sweetened and
enlivened by these calculations, although indeed they were a little
like some of those sweets which bite the tongue.

But the summer went by, as we know, and nothing was seen of the
expected visitor. September came, and Esther almost counted the hours,
waking up in the morning with a beat of the heart, thinking, to-day he
may come! and lying down at night with a despairing sense that the time
was slipping away, and her only consolation that there was some yet
left. She said nothing about it; she watched t