"Esther always manages well," observed dear mother, proudly. The extent to which she believed in me and my resources was astonishing.

She followed me all over the house, praising everything. I was glad Ruth heard her, and knew that I had done my best for them all. Allan accompanied the others, and we had quite a merry evening.

Ruth stayed to tea. "She was really becoming one of us!" as mother observed; and Allan took her home. We all crowded into the porch to see them off; even Carrie, who was getting quite nimble on her crutches. It was a warm April night; the little common was flooded with moonlight; the spring flowers were sleeping in the white rays, and the limes glistened like silver. Uncle Geoffrey and I walked with them to the gate, while Ruth got into her pony carriage.

I did not like saying good-night to Allan; it seemed so strange for him to be going back to the old house alone; but he burst into one of his ringing laughs when I told him so.

"Why, I like it," he said, cheerily; "it is good fun being monarch of all I survey. Didn't I tell you I was cut out for an old bachelor?

You must come and make tea for me sometimes, when I can't get out here." And then, in a more serious voice, he added, "It does put one into such good spirits to see mother and you girls safe in this pretty nest."

I had never been idle; but now the day never seemed long enough for my numerous occupations, and yet they were summer days, too.

The early rising was now an enjoyment to me. I used to work in the garden or conservatory before breakfast, and how delicious those hours were when the birds and I had it all to ourselves; and I hardly know which sang the loudest, for I was very happy, very happy indeed, without knowing why. I think this unreasoning and unreasonable happiness is an attribute of youth.

I had got over my foolish disappointment about the Cedars. Ruth kept her word n.o.bly, and she and Flurry came perpetually to the cottage.

Sometimes I spent an afternoon or evening at the Cedars, and then I always saw Mr. Lucas, and he was most friendly and pleasant. He used to talk of coming down one afternoon to see how I was getting on with my fernery, but it was a long time before he kept his promise.

The brief cloud, or whatever it was, had vanished and he was his own genial self. Flurry had not another governess, but Ruth gave her lessons sometimes, and on her bad days her father heard them. It was rather desultory teaching, and I used to shake my head rather solemnly when I heard of it; but Ruth always said that Giles wished it to be so for the present. The child was not strong, and was growing fast, and it would not hurt her to run wild a little.

When breakfast was over, Dot and I worked hard; and in the afternoon I generally read to Carrie; she was far less of an invalid now, and used to busy herself with work for the poor while she lay on her couch and listened. She used to get mother to help her sometimes, and then Carrie would look so happy as she planned how this garment was to be for old Nanny Stables, and the next for her little grandson Jemmy. With returning strength came the old, unselfish desire to benefit others. It put her quite into spirits one day when Mrs.

Smedley asked her to cover some books for the Sunday school.

"How good of her to think of it; it is just work that I can do!" she said, gratefully; and for the rest of the day she looked like the old Carrie again.

Allan came to see us nearly every evening. Oh, those delicious summer evenings! how vividly even now they seem to rise before me, though many, many happy years lie between me and them.

Somehow it had grown a sort of habit with us to spend them on the common. Mother loved the sweet fresh air, and would sit for hours among the furze bushes and gorse, knitting placidly, and watching the children at their play, or the cottagers at work in their gardens; and Uncle Geoffrey, in his old felt hat, would sit beside her, reading the papers.

Allan used to tempt Carrie for a stroll over the common; and when she was tired he and Jack and I would saunter down some of the long country lanes, sometimes hunting for glow-worms in the hedges, sometimes extending our walk until the moon shone over the silent fields, and the night became sweet and dewy, and the hedgerows glimmered strangely in the uncertain light.

How cozy our little drawing-room always looked on our return! The lamp would be lighted on the round table, and the warm perfume of flowers seemed to steep the air with fragrance; sometimes the gla.s.s door would lie open, and gray moths come circling round the light, and outside lay the lawn, silvered with moonlight. Allan used to leave us regretfully to go back to the old house at Milnthorpe; he said we were such a snug party.

When Carrie began to visit the cottages and to gather the children round her couch on Sunday afternoons, I knew she was her old self again. Day by day her sweet face grew calmer and happier; her eyes lost their sad wistful expression, and a little color touched her wan cheeks.

Truly she often suffered much, and her lameness was a sad hindrance in the way of her usefulness; but her hands were always busy, and on her well days she spent hours in the cottages reading to two or three old people, or instructing the younger ones.

It was touching to see her so thankful for the fragments of work that still fell to her share, content to take the humblest task, if she only might give but "a cup of cold water to one of these little ones;" and sometimes I thought how dearly the Good Shepherd must love the gentle creature who was treading her painful life-path so lovingly and patiently.

I often wondered why Mr. Lucas never kept his promise of coming to see us; but one evening when Jack and Allan and I returned from our stroll we found him sitting talking to mother and Uncle Geoffrey.

I was so surprised at his sudden appearance that I dropped some of the flowers I held in my hand, and he laughed as he helped me to pick them up.

"I hope I haven't startled you," he said, as we shook hands.

"No--that is--I never expected to see you here this evening," I returned, rather awkwardly.

"Take off your hat, Esther," said mother, in an odd tone; and I thought she looked flushed and nervous, just as she does when she wants to cry. "Mr. Lucas has promised to have supper with us, and, my dear, he wants you to show him the conservatory and the fernery."

It was still daylight, though the sun was setting fast; we had returned earlier than usual, for Allan had to go back to Milnthorpe, and he bade us goodnight hastily as I prepared to obey mother.

Jack followed us, but mother called her back, and asked her to go to one of the cottages and fetch Carrie home. Such a glorious sunset met our eyes as we stepped out on the lawn; the clouds were a marvel of rose and violet and golden splendor; the windows of the cottage were glittering with the reflected beams, and a delicious scent of lilies was in the air.

Mr. Lucas seemed in one of his grave moods, for he said very little until we reached the winding walk where the ferns were, and then----

I am not going to repeat what he said; such words are too sacred; but it came upon me with the shock of a thunderbolt what he had been telling mother, and what he was trying to make me understood, for I was so stupid that I could not think what he meant by asking me to the Cedars, and when he saw that, he spoke more plainly.

"You must come back, Esther; we cannot do without you any longer,"

he continued very gently, "not as Flurry's governess, but as her mother, and as my wife."

He was very patient with me, when he saw how the suddenness and the wonder of it all upset me, that a man like Mr. Lucas could love me, and be so clever and superior and good. How could such a marvelous thing have happened?

And mother knew it, and Uncle Geoffrey, for Mr. Lucas had taken advantage of my absence to speak to them both, and they had given him leave to say this to me. Well, there could be no uncertainty in my answer. I already reverenced and venerated him above other men, and the rest came easy, and before we returned to the house the first strangeness and timidity had pa.s.sed; I actually asked him--summoning up all my courage, however--how it was he could think of me, a mere girl without beauty, or cleverness, or any of the ordinary attractions of girlhood.

"I don't know," he answered, and I knew by his voice he was smiling; "it has been coming on a long time; when people know you they don't think you plain, Esther, and to me you can never be so. I first knew what I really felt when I came out of the room that dreadful night, and saw you standing with drenched hair and white face, with Dot in your arms and my precious Flurry clinging to your dress; when I saw you tottering and caught you. I vowed then that you, and none other, should replace Flurry's dead mother;" and when he had said this I asked no more.

CHAPTER XXIV.

RINGING THE CHANGES.

When Mr. Lucas took me to mother, she kissed me and shed abundance of tears.

"Oh, my darling, if only your poor father could know of this," she whispered; and when Uncle Geoffrey's turn came he seemed almost as touched.

"What on earth are we to do without you, child?" he grumbled, wiping his eye-gla.s.ses. "There, go along with you. If ever a girl deserved a good husband and got it, you are the one."

"Yes, indeed," sighed mother; "Esther is every one's right hand."

But Mr. Lucas sat down by her side and said something so kind and comforting that she soon grew more cheerful, and I went up to Carrie.

She was resting a little in the twilight, and I knelt down beside her and hid my face on her shoulder, and now the happy tears would find a vent.

"Why, Esther--why, my dear, what does this mean?" she asked, anxiously; and then, with a sudden conviction dawning on her, she continued in an excited voice--"Mr. Lucas is here; he has been saying something, he--he----" And then I managed somehow to stammer out the truth.

"I am so happy; but you will miss me so dreadfully, darling, and so will Dot and mother."

But Carrie took me in her arms and silenced me at once.

"We are all happy in your happiness; you shall not shed a tear for us--not one. Do you know how glad I am, how proud I feel that he should think so highly of my precious sister! Where is he? Let me get up, that I may welcome my new brother. So you and your dear Ruth will be sisters," she said, rallying me in her gentle way, and that made me smile and blush.

How good Carrie was that evening! Mr. Lucas was quite touched by her few sweet words of welcome, and mother looked quite relieved at the sight of her bright face.

"What message am I to take to Ruth?" he said to me, as we stood together in the porch later on that evening.

"Give her my dear love, and ask her to come to me," was my half-whispered answer; and as I went to bed that night Carrie's words rang in my ears like sweetest music--"You and Ruth will be sisters."

But it was Allan who was my first visitor. Directly Uncle Geoffrey told him what had happened, he put on his broad-brimmed straw hat, and leaving Uncle Geoffrey to attend to the patients, came striding down to the cottage.