, if at this time of her
life she had been left to grow like the wild things in the woods,
without sympathy or care. For some human plants need a good deal of
both to develop them to their full richness and fragrance; and Esther
was one of these. The loss of her mother had threatened to be an
irreparable injury to her. Colonel Gainsborough was a tenderly
affectionate father: still, like a good many men, he did not understand
child nature, could not adapt himself to it, had no sort of notion of
its wants, and no comprehension that it either needed or could receive
and return his sympathy. So he did not give sympathy to his child, nor
dreamed that she was in danger of starving for want of it. Indeed, he
had never in his life given much sympathy to anybody, except his wife;
and in the loss of his wife, Colonel Gainsborough thought so much of
himself was lost that the remainder probably would not last long. He
thought himself wounded to death. That it might be desirable, and that
it might be duty to live for his daughter's sake, was an idea that had
never entered his very masculine heart. Yet Colonel Gainsborough was a
good man, and even had the power of being a tender one; he had been
that towards his wife; but when she died he felt that life had gone
from him.

All this, more or less, young Dallas came to discern and understand in
the course of his associations with the father and daughter. And now it
was with a little pardonable pride and a good deal of growing
tenderness for the child, that he saw the change going on in Esther.
She was always, now as before, quiet as a mouse in her father's
presence; truly she was quiet as a mouse everywhere; but under the
outward quiet Dallas could see now the impulse and throb of the strong
and sensitive life within; the stir of interest and purpose and hope;
the waking up of the whole nature; and he saw that it was a nature of
great power and beauty. It was no wonder that the face through which
this nature shone was one of rare power and beauty too. Others could
see that, besides him.

'What a handsome little girl that is!' remarked the elder Dallas one
evening. Esther had just left the house, and his son come into the room.

'It seems to me she is here a great deal,' Mrs. Dallas said, after a
pause. The remark about Esther's good looks called forth no response.
'I see her coming and going pretty nearly every day.'

'Quite every day,' her son answered.

'And you go there every