rtainly,' Mrs. Dallas answered, holding out her hand to
the child, who touched it as somewhat embodying a condescension rather
than a kindness. 'How is your father, my dear?'

'He does not feel very well,' said Esther; 'but he never does.'

'Pity!' said the lady; but Esther could not tell what she meant. It was
a pity, of course, that her father did not feel well. 'Where have you
been all this while?' the lady went on, addressing her son.

'Where?--well, in reality, walking over half the country. See our
flowers! In imagination, over half the world. Do you know what a
collection of coins Colonel Gainsborough has?'

'No,' said the lady coldly.

'He has a very fine collection.'

'I see no good in coins that are not current.'

'Difference of opinion, you see, there, mother. An old piece, which
when it was current was worth only perhaps a farthing or two, now when
its currency is long past would sell maybe for fifty or a hundred
pounds.'

'That is very absurd, Pitt!'

'Not altogether.'

'Why not?'

'Those old coins are history.'

'You don't want them for history. You have the history in books.'

Pitt laughed.

'Come away, Esther,' he said. 'Come and let me show you where you are
to find me when you want me.'

'Find you for what?' asked the lady, before they could quit the room.

'Esther is coming to take lessons from me,' he said, throwing his head
back laughingly as he went.

'Lessons! In what?'

'Anything she wants to learn, that I can teach her. We have been
studying history and botany to-day. Come along, Esther. We shall not
take our lessons _here_.'

He led the way, going out into the hall and at the further end of it
passing into a verandah which there too extended along the back of the
house. The house on this side had a long offset, or wing, running back
at right angles with the main building. The verandah also made an angle
and followed the side of this wing, which on the ground floor contained
the kitchen and offices. Half way of its length a stairway ran up, on
the outside, to a door nearer the end of the building. Up this stair
young Dallas went, and introduced Esther to a large room, which seemed
to her presently the oddest and also the most interesting that she had
ever in her life seen. Its owner had got together, apparently, the old
bits of furniture that his mother did not want any longer; there was an
old table, devoid of all varnish, in the floor, covered, however, with
a nice gr