ging.

'Papa, she cannot get the things you want.'

'Do I complain?'

'No, sir, certainly; but--is this necessary?'

'Is what necessary?'

'Papa, she tells me she cannot get you the fruit you ought to have; you
are stinted in strawberries, and she has not money to buy raspberries.'

'Call Barker.'

The call was not necessary, for the housekeeper at this moment appeared
to take away the tea-things.

'Mrs. Barker,' said the colonel, 'you will understand that I do not
wish any fruit purchased for my table. Not until further orders.'

The housekeeper glanced at Esther, and answered with her decorous,
'Certainly, sir;' and with that, for the time, the discussion was ended.

CHAPTER XXIX.

_HAY AND OATS_.

But it is in the nature of this particular subject that the discussion
of it is apt to recur. Esther kept silence for some time, possessing
herself in patience as well as she could. Nothing more was said about
Christopher by anybody, and things went their old train, minus peaches,
to be sure, and also minus pears and plums and nuts and apples,
articles which Esther at least missed, whether her father did or not.
Then fish began to be missing.

'I thought, Miss Esther, dear,' said Mrs. Barker when this failure in
the _menu_ was mentioned to her,--'I thought maybe the colonel wouldn't
mind if he had a good soup, and the fish ain't so nourishin', they say,
as the meat of the land creatures. Is it because they drinks so much
water, Miss Esther?'

'But I think papa does not like to go without his fish.'

'Then he must have it, mum, to be sure; but I'm sure I don't just
rightly know how to procure it. It must be done, however.'

The housekeeper's face looked doubtful, notwithstanding her words of
assurance, and a vague fear seized her young mistress.

'Do not get anything you have not money to pay for, at any rate!' she
said impressively.

'Well, mum, and there it is!' cried the housekeeper. 'There is things
as cannot be dispensed with, in no gentleman's house. I thought maybe
fish needn't be counted among them things, but now it seems it must. I
may as well confess, Miss Esther; that last barrel o' flour ain't been
paid for yet.'

'Not paid for!' cried Esther in horror. 'How came that?'

'Well, mum, just that I hadn't the money. And bread must be had.'

'Not if it cannot be paid for! I would rather starve, if it comes to
that. You might have got a lesser quantity.'

'No, mum,' replied the hou