about how the week had
been, he relapsed into his book; and she had to wait for a time to talk
of anything else. Esther sat down with a piece of fancy work, and held
her tongue till tea-time. The house was as still as if nobody lived in
it. The colonel occasionally turned a leaf; now and then a puff of gas
or a sudden jet of flame in the Liverpool coal fire gave a sort of
silent sound, rebuking the humanity that lived there. No noise was
heard from below stairs; the middle-aged and well-trained servants did
their work with the regularity and almost with the smoothness of
machines. It occurred to Esther anew that her life was excessively
quiet; and a thought of Pitt, and how good it would have been to see
him, arose again, as it had risen so many times. And then came the
thoughts of the afternoon. With Christ,--was not that enough? Doing His
will and having it--could she want anything more? Esther smiled to
herself. She wanted nothing more.

Barker came in with the tea-kettle, and the cold tongue and the salad
made the supper-table look very comfortable. She made the tea, and the
colonel put down his book.

'Do you never get tired of reading, papa?'

'Yes, my dear. One gets tired of everything!'

This was said with a discouraging half breath of a sigh.

'Then you might talk a little, for a change, papa.'

'Humph! Whom should I talk to?'

'Me, papa, for want of somebody else.'

This suggestion fell dead. The colonel took his toast and tried the
salad.

'Is it good, papa?' Esther asked, in despair at the silence.

'Yes, my dear, it is good. Vegetable salads are a little cold at this
time of year.'

'Papa, we were driven to it. Barker had not money enough this week to
get you a partridge. And she says it has happened several times lately
that you have forgotten to give her the usual amount for the week's
housekeeping.'

'Then she says wrong.'

'She told me, several times she has not had enough, sir.'

'In that she may be right.'

Esther paused, questioning what this might mean. She must know.

'Papa, do you mean you gave her insufficient money and knew it at the
time?'

'I knew it at the time.'

There was another interval, of greater length. Esther felt a little
chill creeping over her. Yet she must come to an understanding with her
father; that was quite indispensable.

'Papa, do you mean that it was inadvertence? Or was it necessity?'

'How could it be inadvertence, when I tell you I knew what I