San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1890-11-10
CHAPTER XVII.

Mrs. Hill, can you come to me?"
Before Esther had been a fortnight at
WreXham this curt, b~usiness-like sum-
mons from Mr.. Dunstan had come to
be a familiar sound to everybody in the
house. He would open the door of the
room in which she CHANGED to be sit
ting, and without entering would ad-
dress it to her from the threshold, ex-
| pecting her lin a mans arbitrary way)
to lay down book or work, or whatever
she might be engaged upon, at the
sound of it, and follow him to the Ii
brary.
IF you want any writing done while 1
am here, l hope you will let me do it,"
she had said to him on the first day
when he had employed her services in
this way, and he had taken her so frank
ly at her word that she had never need
ed to repeat her request. For a few
days, indeed, he had prefaced his calls
upon her with some such civil words as
IF you have nothing better to do at
this moment, Mrs. Hill" or-"If
you could spare me half an hour when
it suits you best, and so on; but these
little embroideries had been continued
only for a very short time indeed, and,
as / said. before she had been a fort
Il Nv w AHA III oNO oupCluAOuo
c%ourtesies had been discontinued. and
his summons to her had got simpliied
into the short and direct question
"Mrs. Hill, a you come to me2" He
spoke it altogether as if it was an ordi-
nary summons to work, and, for little
while at any rate, it was simply as a
summons to work that she received it.
As a call to work which it wa indeed
rlnnCnnt 70 har 70 do httf paf which ,,1a
honest employment in his eyes, and not
pretense at employment. She thought
that all the various tasks of writing and
of paper and drawer arranging that he
gave her to do were so many pieces of
work that needed immediate perform
ance. When she searched through
twenty packages of letters for one
especial letter which he described to
her, she never guessed that she was be-
ing set to look for adocument for which
he himself had been looking at odd
minutes for half a dozen years till he
had lost all but the most distant hope
of ever finding it. When she sought
through volume after volume to find
some quotation that he wanted,s she
thought it was wanted for immediate
use, instead of only to crafty his curl
Osity, or for a possible use six months
hence perhaps. When she wrote letters
to his dictation she wrote them without
the faintest suspicion that he had never
in his life before dictated or thought of
debating a letter to any other human
being. These things were all things
that he wanted to have done, and that
she could help him in doing, he said
and so she did them, with no misgiyings
at the first, and no other feeling on her
part than that she was glad with all her
heart to be of use to him.
There was no regular time of the day
at which these various services were de-
manded from her. Sometimes he called
her in the morning, but more often it
would suit him to ask for her help after
luncheon, or sometimes not till evening.
Occasionally a day would pass when she
received no summons from him at all,
but this happened rarely-and more and
more rarely as time went on.
Il am afraid Mr.. DunStan imposes
upon your good nature. my dear Aunt