ekeeper solemnly, 'the things is different.
It's my belief there ain't half a dozen men on the face o' the earth
that is fit to have wives, and one o' the half dozen I never see yet.
Christopher's a good brother, mum, as you say; as good as you'll find,
maybe,--I've nought against him as sich; but then, I ain't his wife,
and that makes all the differ. There's no tellin' what men don't expect
o' their wives, when once they've got 'em.'

'Expectations ought to be mutual, I should think,' said Esther, amused.
'But it would be the right thing for you to go and see Mrs. Bounder at
any rate, and to be very good to her; and you know, Barker, you always
like to do what is right.'

There was a sweet persuasiveness in the tone of the last words, which
at least silenced Mrs. Barker; and Esther went away to think what she
should say to her father. The time had come to speak in earnest, and
she must not let herself be silenced. Getting into debt on one hand,
and receiving charity on the other! Esther's pulses made a bound
whenever she thought of it. She must not put it _so_ to Colonel
Gainsborough. How should she put it? She knelt down and prayed for
wisdom, and then she went to the parlour. It was one Saturday afternoon
in the winter; school business in full course, and Esther's head and
hands very much taken up with her studies. The question of ways and
means had been crowded out of her very memory for weeks past; it came
with so much the sharper incisiveness now. She went in where her father
was reading, poked the fire, brushed up the hearth, finally faced the
business in hand.

'Papa, are you particularly busy? Might I interrupt you?'

'You _have_ interrupted me,' said the colonel, letting his hand with
the book sink to his side, and turning his face towards the speaker.
But he said it with a smile, and looked with pleased attention for what
was coming. His fair, graceful, dignified daughter was a constant
source of pride and satisfaction to him, though he gave little account
of the fact to himself, and made scarce any demonstration of it to her.
He saw that she was fair beyond most women, and that she had that
refined grace of carriage and manner which he valued as belonging to
the highest breeding. There was never anything careless about Esther's
appearance, or hasty about her movements, or anything that was not
sweet as balm in her words and looks. As she stood there now before
him, serious and purposeful, her head, which