Ester was sitting upon the back porch, hulling strawberries and watching with absent amusement the tireless efforts of Jane to induce a very fat and entirely brainless pup to shake hands. It had been a busy day, for owing to the absence of the free and independent "Saturday Help" Esther had insisted upon helping Aunt Amy in the kitchen. Now the Saturday pies and cakes were accomplished and only the strawberries lay between Esther and freedom. She had intended, a little later, to walk out along the river road in search of marguerites, but when Mary, more than usually restless after her fainting spell of yesterday, had offered to go instead, she had not demurred. It would be quite as pleasant to take a book and sit out under the big elm. Esther was at that stage when everything seems to be for the best in this "best of all possible worlds." She was living through those suspended moments when life stands tiptoe, breathless with expectancy, yet calm with an assurance of joy to come. With the knowledge that Henry Callandar was not quite as other men, had come an intense, delicious shyness; the aloofness of the maiden who feels love near yet cannot, through her very nature, take one step to meet it. There was no hurry. She was surrounded with a roseate haze, lapped in deep content; for, while the doctor had learned nothing from their last meeting under the elm, Esther had learned everything. She had not seemed to look at him as they parted, yet she had known, oh, she had known very well, how he had looked at her! All she wanted, now, was to be alone with that look; to hold it there in her memory, not to analyse or question, but to glance at it shyly now and again, feeding with quick glimpses the new strange joy at the heart. "D'ye think He ever forgets to put brains into dogs?" asked Jane suddenly. "Oh, you silly thing, don't roll over like that! Stop wriggling and give me your paw!" "He, who?" vaguely. Jane made a disgusted gesture. "You're not listening, Esther! You know there is only one Person who puts brains into dogs!" "But Pickles is such a puppy, Jane. Give him time." "It's not age," gloomily. "It's stupidness. All puppies are stupid, but Esther laughed. "Where did you get the word, ducky?" "From the doctor. It was something he said about Aunt Amy. Say, Esther, isn't he going to take you driving any more? I saw him going past this very afternoon. He turned down towards the river road. There was lots of room. Next time he takes you, may Pickles and me go too?" "Pickles and I, Jane." "Well, may we?" "I don't know. Perhaps. When did the doctor go past?" "Nearly two hours ago. I wonder if there's some one kick down there? Bubble says they're getting a tremenjous practice. I don't like Bubble any more. He thinks he's smart. I don't like Ann, either. I shan't ask her to my birthday party." "I thought you loved Ann." "Well, I don't. She thinks she's smart!" "Ann, too? Smartness must be epidemic." "It's all on account of the doctor," gloomily. "They can't get over having him boarding at their place. I told Ann that my own father was a doctor, but she said dead ones didn't count. Then I told her that my mother didn't have to keep boarders anyway." "That was a naughty, snobbish thing to say. I'm ashamed of you!" "What's 'snobbish'?" "What you said was snobbish. Think it over and find out." Jane was silent, apparently thinking it over. The fat pup, tired with unwonted mental exertions, curled up and went to sleep. Esther returned to her dreams. Then, into the warm hush of the late afternoon came the quick panting of a motor car. "There he is!" cried Jane excitedly. "Let's both run down to the gate to see him." "Jane!" Esther's cheeks were the colour of her ripest berry. "Jane, come here! I forbid you—Jane!" "He's stopping anyway. He'll be coming in. You had better take off that apron.—Oh, look! Some one's with him. Why," with some disappointment, "it's mother! He is letting her out. I don't believe he is coming in at all—let go! Esther, you pig, let me go!" She wriggled out of her sister's firm hold but not before the motor had started again; when she reached the gate it was out of sight. Mrs. Coombe surveyed her daughter coldly. "You are a very ill-mannered child," she said, and putting her aside walked slowly up the path and around the house to where Esther sat on the back porch. "Where are the daisies?" asked Esther, looking up from her berries. "The daisies?" vaguely. "Good gracious! I forgot all about the daisies." "Didn't you get any?" "Heaps, but the fact is I didn't bring them home. I felt so tired. I don't know how I should have managed to get home myself if Dr. Callandar hadn't picked me up." "Dr. Callandar?" Esther's voice was mildly questioning. "Yes, why not?" "I thought you had not met him." "Neither I had—at least I hadn't met him for a good many years." Mary gave a little excited laugh. "But that's the funny part of it—he is an old friend." Esther looked up with her characteristic widening of the eyes. The news was genuinely surprising. And how agitated her mother seemed! "It is really quite a remarkable coincidence," went on Mary nervously. "I was so surprised, startled indeed. Although it's pleasant, of course, to meet an old schoolmate." "You and Doctor Callandar schoolmates?" The eyes were very wide now. Mary grew more and more confused. "Yes—that is, not exactly. I mean his name wasn't Callandar then. His name was Chedridge. Did you never hear me speak of Harry Chedridge?" "Never." "Well, you never listen to half I say. And how was I to know that Doctor Esther hulled a particularly fine berry and carefully putting the hull in the pan, threw the berry away. "Curiouser and curiouser!" she said, quoting the immortal Alice. "Did you recognise him at once?" If it be possible for a lady of this enlightened age to simper, Mrs. Coombe simpered. "He recognised me at once!" with faint emphasis on the pronouns. The girl choked down a rising inclination to laugh. "Why shouldn't he? I suppose you haven't changed very much." "Hardly at all, he says; at least he says he would have known me anywhere. But it's quite a long time, you know, terribly long. I was a young girl then. Naturally, he was much older." "I should have thought so. That's why it seems queer—your having been schoolmates." Mrs. Coombe looked cross. "I did not mean schoolmates in that sense." "Oh, merely in a Pickwickian sense!" Esther's laugh bubbled out. Mary arose. She was afraid to risk more at present, until she had been to her room and—rested awhile. "You are rude, as usual," she said with dignity. "When I said that Dr. Callandar and I were schoolmates I meant simply that we were old friends, that we knew each other when we were both younger. I do not see anything at all humorous in the statement." "No, of course not!" with quick compunction. "It's quite lovely. Just like a book. Why didn't he come in?" The question was so cleverly casual that no one could have guessed the girl's consuming interest in the answer. But its cleverness had overshot the mark, for so colourless was the tone in which it was asked that Mary did not notice it at all. Instead she retreated steadily along her own line. "I hope I always treat your friends with proper courtesy, Esther. And I shall expect you to do the same with mine. Dr. Callandar is a very old friend indeed. Should he call to-night I wish you to receive him as such." "I'll try," said the girl demurely. The way of escape was now open, but Mrs. Coombe hesitated. She seemed to have something else to say. Something which did not come easily. "It's horrid living in a town like Coombe," she burst out. "People always want to know everything. We met the elder Miss Sinclair on the river road—you know what that means! If people ask you any question—or anything—you had better tell them at once that Dr. Callandar is not a stranger." "I should not dream of suppressing the fact." "You see," again that odd hesitation, "he may call—rather often. Despite her care, Esther's sensitive face flamed in answer to the quickened beat of her heart. What an odd thing for her mother to say! What did she mean? Was it possible that he had already told her—asked her? Or had she merely guessed? There was a moment's pause, and then, "Let them talk!" said the girl softly. "It can't make any difference, to them, how often Dr. Callandar calls." Mrs. Coombe looked doubtful, hesitated once more, but finally turned away without speaking. As she went, she cast a careless glance at Aunt Amy, who stood just within the kitchen doorway, a curiously watchful look in her usually expressionless eyes. "Berries all ready, Auntie," said Esther cheerfully. "What's the matter with me as a Saturday Help?" But Aunt Amy did not smile as she usually did. "She's gone to get dressed," she said abruptly, indicating with a backward gesture Mrs. Coombe's retiring figure. "Well?" "For him. She's gone to get dressed for him." Esther was puzzled. "Why shouldn't she? Oh, I forget you didn't know! It's quite a romance. Mother used to know Dr. Callandar when she was a girl. 'We twa hae rin aboot the braes,' you know. Only it seems so funny. Fancy, Dr. Callandar and mother! But we shan't have to worry any more about her health. She can't possibly avoid him now." Aunt Amy was not listening. The curiously watchful look was still in her eyes and suddenly, apropos of nothing, she began to wring her hands in the strange, dumb way which always preceded one of her characteristic mental agonies,—agonies which, far beyond her understanding as they were, never failed to awake profound compassion in Esther. "What is it, dear?" she asked gently. "Are you not so well?" "Don't you ever feel things, Esther? Don't you ever sense things—coming?" "No, dear. And neither do you, when you are well. You are tired." She placed her hands firmly upon the locked hands of Aunt Amy and with tender force attempted to separate them. But Jane, who had been a silent but interested spectator, spoke eagerly. |