"Oh!" She turned wide blue eyes upon him. "That is just it. I do not love you."

The blow fell swift, unerring, dealt by the mercilessly honest hand of youth. Esther's eyes were quite dry now. Her nervousness was pa.s.sing.

Regret and pity were merged in one overpowering, instinctive desire: the desire to show him beyond all manner of doubt that she repudiated that possessive touch upon her hand. "I could not ever possibly marry you,"

she said, as calmly as if she had been accustomed to dismissing suitors all her life.

They were still standing by the rose-bush whose desperate fate it was to produce pink roses. With incredulous dismay, the minister saw her turn from him and take a step toward the house.

She had refused him! She was leaving him! At any moment Annabel might finish her Sunday School lesson and come out upon the lawn--all his self-possession vanished like a puff of smoke.

"Esther!" he cried, "Esther! wait. Give me a moment."

She paused, but did not turn.

"I think there is nothing more to say--I am very sorry."

Sorry! She was sorry. This young girl upon whom he had set his desire, of whom he had felt so sure, to whom his love should have come as a crown, was sorry. King Cophetua, flouted by the beggar maid, could not have been more astonished, more deeply humiliated!

But the greater wound was not to his pride. At any cost to his dignity and self-respect he could not let her go like this. His ministerial manner fell away, his readiness deserted him. In a moment he became all lover, pleading, entreating, with the one great abandon of his life, with the stammering eloquence of unspeakable desire!

Slowly the girl turned to him. He saw her pure profile, then the full charm of her changing face. The blue eyes, widely open, were darker, lovelier than ever--Surely there was softening in their depths....

"Es--ther, Es--ther!" Miss Annabel's voice broke upon the tense moment with cheerful insistence, and Miss Annabel herself appeared at the turn of the walk, waving a slip of paper. She saw them at once.

"You're wanted at home, Esther. Your mother's come back. To-day! Think of that! On the noon train. In face of the whole town. And all she said when Elder MacTavish met her coming up from the station was that she had forgotten it was Sunday. Fancy!"

CHAPTER XVIII

Perhaps never, in all her life of inopportune arrivals, had Miss Annabel been so truly welcome--or so bitterly resented! Esther turned to her with a heart-sob of relief, the minister walked away without a word.

"Dear me! What's the matter?" said the good lady. "You seem all excited.

Perhaps I shouldn't have shouted out the news so abruptly. But it never occurred to me that you might be startled. 'Tisn't as if your mother had been away a year. Jane's waiting for you down by the gate. Such a peculiar child! Nothing I could say will induce her to come in. Don't you find Jane is a peculiar child, Esther?"

"Only a little shy," said Esther, quickening her steps.

"Shy! Mercy, I shouldn't call her shy. That child has the self-possession of a Chinee! I hope you won't mind me saying it, but a little shyness is exactly what Jane needs."

Esther, whose shaken nerves threatened hysterical laughter, made no reply to this, but hurried toward the small figure by the garden gate.

"Oh, Jane!" she called, somewhat shakily.

At her voice, the Shy One stopped kicking holes in the turf with the toes of her new boots and executing a bearlike rush, threw herself into her sister's arms.

"I'm home, Esther! So's mother! And she says I don't have to go to Sunday School. That's why I didn't want to come in. Let's hurry before the minister comes."

"Listen to that!" said Miss Annabel in indignation. "Any one would think my brother was an ogre. Angus! Why, he's gone! I thought he was following us."

"I think Mr. Macnair went into the house."

"Did he? What did I tell you? Perhaps my news surprised him as well as you. I thought he looked as pale as a plate. What do you think?"

"I think it is none of our business."

Miss Annabel gave her a shrewd look. "Perhaps not your business. You don't have to live with him. But I do. Well, good-bye, my dear. Tell your mother," significantly, "that I'll be over to see her soon."

Both girls were relieved that the minister did not leave his study to say good-bye. They breathed more freely and their steps slackened as soon as the corner which hid the manse had been safely pa.s.sed.

"I've got new boots," began Jane. "See them? And Fred's new dog has got puppies! He calls her Pickles. She got the puppies this morning. Oh!

they're darlings! But Fred is horrid. He says he is going to give me one for my own, to make up for Timothy. Just as if anything ever could! I never knew any one so heartless as Fred--except Job."

"Job who?" It was a relief to Esther to let the childish chatter run on.

"Why, _Job_. Job was just like Fred. When all his wives died and his little children and his cows, he felt bad, but when G.o.d gave him more wives and more children and lots of cows he was pleased as Punch. I always thought that so strange of G.o.d," in a reflective tone, "but I expect he knew what kind of man Job was and that he didn't have any real feelings. Do you think I ought to take the puppy, Esther? I shouldn't like to be like Job."

"I think there is no danger, dear. But how is mother? Better?"

"Was she sick?" in surprise.

"Her headaches, you know."

"Oh, yes. I don't know whether they are better or not," carelessly. "I didn't see much of mother while we were away. I played all day with Mrs.

Bremner's little girl. Except when we went shopping. I think she must be better, for she did such lots of shopping."

Esther smiled. "Not very much, I think, Janie. Shopping takes money."

"But she did! I have lots and lots of new clothes. Only,"

discontentedly, "most of them don't fit. Mother could never be bothered trying them on. She's got some lovely things, too. Dresses and hats and piles of new shoes and heaps of silk stockings--"

"Jane, why do you say 'lots' and 'piles' and 'heaps' when you know you are exaggerating?"

But there was a note of anxiety in the reproof nevertheless.

"I'm not exaggerating, Esther! She did. Even Miss Bremner asked her what she was going to do with them all."

The elder girl's fingers tightened upon the small hand she held. Her red lips set themselves in a firm line. In face of a danger which she could see and measure Esther had courage enough. And she had faced this particular danger before.

"Mother will tell me all about it, no doubt," she said calmly. "Did she get me something pretty, too?"

"Yes. It's a surprise."

"And when she got all the pretty things I suppose she told the clerks to charge them?"

"Oh, no. She paid for them out of her purse."

Esther was conscious of a swift reaction. The things were paid for. Of course Jane had exaggerated. Children have no sense of value. Some dainty things, Mrs. Coombe was sure to buy; but, as Esther well knew, her slender stock of money would hardly have run to "piles" and "heaps."