A Red Wallflower. Warner Susan
and was quick to see and attend to any little occasion for hospitable care.
The old life began again now in good measure. Esther had no need to beg Pitt to come often; he came constantly. He took up her lessons, as of old, and carried them on vigorously; rightly thinking that good sound mental work was wholesome for the child. He joined her in drawing, and begged the colonel to give him instruction too; and they studied the coins in the boxes with fresh zeal. And they had glorious walks, and most delightful botanizing, in the early summer mornings, or when the sun had got low in the western sky. Sometimes Pitt came with a little tax-cart and took Esther a drive. It was all delight; I cannot tell which thing gave her most pleasure. To study with Pitt, or to play with Pitt, one was as good as the other; and the summer days of that summer were not fuller of fruit-ripening sun, than of blessed, warm, healthy, and happy influences for this little human plant. Her face grew bright and joyous, though in moments when the talk took a certain sober tone Pitt could see the light or the shadow, he hardly knew which to call it, of that too early spiritual insight and activity come over it.
One day, soon after his arrival, he asked her what she had been thinking about so much. They were sitting on the verandah again, to be out of the way of the colonel; they were taking up lessons, and had just finished an examination in history. Pitt let the book fall.
'You said the other day, Queen Esther, that you were under the necessity of thinking. May I ask what you have been thinking about?'
'Did I say that?'
'Something like it.'
Esther's face became sober. 'Everybody must think, I suppose, Pitt?'
'That is a piece of your innocence. A great many people get along quite comfortably without doing any thinking at all.'
'One might as well be a squash,' said Esther gravely. 'I don't see how they can live so.'
'Some people think too much.'
'Why?'
'I don't know why, I am sure. It's their nature, I suppose.'
'What harm, Pitt?'
'You keep a fire going anywhere, and it will burn up what is next to it.'
'Is thought like fire?'
'So far, it is. What were you thinking about, Queen Esther?'
'I had been wanting to ask you about it, Pitt,' the girl said, a little with the air of one who is rousing herself up to give a confidence. 'I was looking for something and I did not know where to find it.'
'Looking for what?'
'I remembered, mamma said people could always find comfort in the
Bible; but I did not know how to look for it.'
'Comfort, Queen Esther!' said Pitt, rousing himself now; 'you were not in want of that article, were you?'
'After you were gone, you know – I hadn't anybody left. And oh, Pitt, are you going to – England?'
'One thing at a time. Tell me about this extraordinary want of comfort, at twelve years old. That is improper, Queen Esther!'
'Why?' she said, casting up to him a pair of such wistful, sensitive, beautiful eyes, that the young man was almost startled.
'People at your age ought to have comfort enough to give away to other people.'
'I shouldn't think they could, always,' said Esther quaintly.
'What is the matter with you?'
Esther looked down, a little uneasily. She felt that Pitt ought to have known. And he did know; however, he thought it advisable to have things brought out into the full light and put into form; hoping they might so be easier dealt with. Esther's next words were hardly consecutive, although perfectly intelligible.
'I know, of course, you cannot stay here always.'
'Of course. But then I shall always be coming back.'
Esther sighed. She was thinking that the absences were long and the times of being at home short; but what was the use of talking about it? That lesson, that words do not change the inevitable, she had already learned. Pitt was concerned.
'Where did you say your highness went to look for comfort?'
'In the Bible. Oh, yes, that was what I wanted your help about. I did not know how to look; and papa said he didn't; or I don't know if hesaid exactly that, but it came to the same thing. And then I asked Barker.'
'Was she any wiser?'
'No. She said her way of finding anything was to begin at one end and go through to the other; so I tried that. I began at the beginning; and I read on; but I found nothing until – I'll show you,' she said, suddenly breaking off and darting away; and in two minutes more she came back with her Bible. She turned over the leaves eagerly.
'Here, Pitt, – I came to this. Now what does it mean?'
She gave him the volume open at the sixth chapter of Numbers; in the end of which is the prescribed form for the blessing of the children of Israel. Pitt read the words to himself.
'The Lord bless thee, and keep thee. 'The Lord make His face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee. 'The Lord lift up His countenance upon thee, and give thee peace.'
Esther waited till she saw he had read them through.
'Now, Pitt, what does that mean?'
'Which?'
'That last: "The Lord lift up His countenance upon thee, and give thee peace." What does "lift up his countenance upon thee" mean?'
What did it mean? Pitt asked himself the question for the first time in his life. He was quite silent.
'You see,' said Esther quaintly, after a pause, – 'you see, that would be comfort.'
Pitt was still silent.
'Do you understand it, Pitt?'
'Understand it, Esther!' he said, knitting his brows, 'No. Nobody could do that, except – the people that had it. But I think I see what it means.'
'The people "that had it"? That had what?'
'This wonderful thing.'
'What wonderful thing?'
'Queen Esther, you ought to ask your father.'
'I can't ask papa,' said the little girl. 'If ever I speak to him of comfort, he thinks directly of mamma. I cannot ask him again.'
'And I am all your dependence?' he said half lightly.
'I mustn't depend upon you either. Only, now you are here, I thought I would ask you.'
'You ought to have a better counsellor. However, perhaps I can tell what you want to know, in part. Queen Esther, was your mother, or your father, ever seriously displeased with you?'
Esther reflected, a little astonished, and then said no.
'I suppose not!' said Pitt. 'Then you don't know by experience what it would be, to have either of them refuse to look at you or smile upon you? – hide their face from you, in short?'
'Why, no! never.'
'You're a happy girl.'
'But what has that to do with it?'
'Nothing to do with it; it is the very contrast and opposite, in fact.
Don't you see? "Lift up the light of thy countenance;" – you know what the "light" of a smiling, loving face of approval is? You know that,
Queen Esther?'
'That?' repeated Esther breathlessly. 'Yes, I know; but this is God.'
'Yes, and I do not understand; but that is what it means.'
'You don't understand!'
'No. How should I? But that is what it means. Something that answers to what among us a bright face of love is, when it smiles upon us. That is "light," isn't it?'
'Yes,' said Esther. 'But how can this be, Pitt?'
'I cannot tell. But that