San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1890-11-08


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well, you couldn't feel better to her
than so, that can see," her brother re-
sponded quietly to this speech. "She
needs your kindness to the full, / should
say, as much as any child could need it,
More than most children perhaps" he
added, with something of laugh, an
image of unruly boys and girls rising
before his minds eye at the moment, in
somewhat unfavorable contrast with
that other image of Esther Hill with
her pale patient face.
For his own part, Mr.. Dunstan treat
ed Mrs. Hill with unvarying cordiality,
and with quiet trustfulness and kind
ness that went to the very bottom of
her heart. She had been very shy of
him, and had morbid way of shrink
ing from him before she came to Wrex-
ham, not from dislike, but from a sort
or vague belief that, though he was
good, and could be at times both gentle
and tender, he was in general too rough
and blunt for any one who did not know
him we'll to be at ease with him. But
somehow, before she had been for many
days under his roof, he had made her
cease to think that he was rough and
blunt; or, at the least, he had made her
cease entirely to have any fear of his
bluntnesS.
He was so ceaselessly and quietly
kind to her that she could not continue
to be afraid of him. He treated her in
deed with little peculiar show of court
esey, with no marked attentions of any
kind, with no civilities paid specially
to her because she was guest: but it
was the very absence of all this that
won her most, for he did what touched
her far more than the utmost considera-
ton shown to her as stranger could
have done,-he accepted her as if she
had been one of his own people. He
took her at her word, and believed in
her. The others, even when they seem
ed most at home with her, would at mo-
ments remind her that she was not one
of them by uttering some apology-ten-
der enough, it might be, but yet an
apology such as they would not have
offered to one of themselves-fo let
ting her do this or that thing for them;
but Mr.. Dunstan fell into the way of
taking her services-when any occasion
arose on which it was possible for her
to serve him-as frankly as he would
have taken Gabrielle's.
She was little enough in the habit of
speaking to any of them, and least of
all to him, of her regard for them; but
one day, after she had been a week or
so in the house, something that occur
red made her say suddenly to him
IF you want to show the greatest
kindness to me give me something to do
for you. 1t goes to my heart to take so
much from you, and to do nothing in
return. You do not know how happy
you would make me if you would be-
lieve this, once for ALL"
rs any one unwilling to believe it?
1 don't think L have shown myself
especially unready, for one," he an
swered; and in fact, even before this,
most people would have said he had not;
but, if to any extent he had seemed till
now to regard her as stranger, after
this time at any rate he treated her
with an entire reliance on her truth
an unhesitating faith in her having
meant the thing she said,-that went to
her heart as almost nothing else could
have done.
''Oh, if could but dare to be happy"
she passionately thought to herself
hundred times during these weeks,
'how happy / might be now!--if any
thing in the wide world could but undo
what is past, and make me safe, so that
it would never rise up against me
again!" But she knew every time she
said this that she was not safe, and that
it might rise up at any hour against her;
and this was the cruel thorn in her flesh
during all these placid and blessed days.
She so loved these people who had held
out their cordial hands to her; she knew
of any of their heads, she would lay
down her life for them, or go away and
never see them any more, and yet in
spite of her devotion, and of all their
goodness to her, night and day she was
haunted by the thought that she had no
right to stay with them. In every act
she did, in every word she spoke in their
hearing, she was true to them, and to
her love for them,-and yet she was de-
ceiving them all the while. Could any
thing excuse her for such deceit? They
all, indeed, understood that she was
something from them, but
the kind of thing that she was conceal
any of them guess that? She
knew that they did not; she knew that,
if the thing she dreaded should ever
come, these doors that had opened so
widely would never open to her again,
nor these faces greet her again, as they
did now.