d, there was very little utterance. Am I wrong in
conjecturing, however, that there was considerable feeling of a certain
quiet kind? Miss Blunt maintained a rich, golden silence. I, on the
other hand, was very voluble. What a sweet, womanly listener she is!

* * * * *

_September 1st._--I have been working steadily for a week. This is the
first day of autumn. Read aloud to Miss Blunt a little Wordsworth.

* * * * *

_September 10th. Midnight._--Worked without interruption,--until
yesterday, inclusive, that is. But with the day now closing--or
opening--begins a new era. My poor vapid old diary, at last you shall
hold a _fact_.

For three days past we have been having damp, chilly weather. Dusk has
fallen early. This evening, after tea, the Captain went into town,--on
business, as he said: I believe, to attend some Poorhouse or Hospital
Board. Esther and I went into the parlor. The room seemed cold. She
brought in lamp from the dining-room, and proposed we should have a
little fire. I went into the kitchen, procured an armful of wood, and
while she drew the curtains and wheeled up the table, I kindled a
lively, crackling blaze. A fortnight ago she would not have allowed me
to do this without a protest. She would not have offered to do it
herself,--not she!--but she would have said that I was not here to
serve, but to be served, and would have pretended to call Dorothy. Of
course I should have had my own way. But we have changed all that.
Esther went to her piano, and I sat down to a book. I read not a word. I
sat looking at my mistress, and thinking with a very uneasy heart. For
the first time in our friendship, she had put on a dark, warm dress: I
think it was of the material called alpaca. The first time I saw her
she wore a white dress with a purple neck-ribbon; now she wore a black
dress with the same ribbon. That is, I remember wondering, as I sat
there eying her, whether it _was_ the same ribbon, or merely another
like it. My heart was in my throat; and yet I thought of a number of
trivialities of the same kind. At last I spoke.

"Miss Blunt," I said, "do you remember the first evening I passed
beneath your roof, last June?"

"Perfectly," she replied, without stopping.

"You played this same piece."

"Yes; I played it very badly, too. I only half knew it. But it is a
showy piece, and I wished to produce an effect. I didn't know then how
indiff