Even so, she was always glad when dinner was done.
By the time that it was over to-day, and the table cleared, Esther's mood had changed; and she no longer found the box of casts attractive. She had seen what was in it so often before, and she knew just what she should find. At the same time she was in desperate want of something to amuse her, or at least to pass away the time, which went so slowly if unaided. She bethought her of trying another box, or series of boxes, over which she had seen her father and mother spend hours together; but the contents hitherto had not seemed to her interesting. The key was on the same chain with the key of the casts; Esther sat down on the floor by one of the windows, having shoved one of the boxes into that neighbourhood, turned the key, and opened the cover. Her father was lying on the couch again and gave her no attention, and Esther made no call upon him for help.
An hour or two had passed. Esther had not changed her place, and the box, which contained a quantity of coins, was still open; but the child's hands lay idly in her lap, and her eyes were gazing into vacancy. Looking back, perhaps, at the images of former days; smiling images of light and love, in scenes where her mother's figure filled all the foreground. Colonel Gainsborough did not see how the child sat there, nor what an expression of dull, hopeless sorrow lay upon her features. All the life and variety of which her face was abundantly capable had disappeared; the corners of the mouth drawn down, the brow rigid, the eyes rayless, she sat an image of childish desolation. She looked even stupid, if that were possible to Esther's features and character.
What the father did not see was revealed to another person, who came in noiselessly at the open door. This new-comer was a young man, hardly yet arrived at the dignity of young manhood; he might have been eighteen, but he was really older than his years. His figure was well developed, with broad shoulders and slim hips, showing great muscular power and the symmetry of beauty as well. The face matched the figure; it was strong and fine, full of intelligence and life, and bearing no trace of boyish wilfulness. If wilfulness was there, which I think, it was rather the considered and consistent wilfulness of a man. As he came in at the open door, Esther's position and look struck him; he paused half a minute. Then he came forward, came to the colonel's sofa, and standing there bowed respectfully.
The colonel's book went down. 'Ah, William,' said he, in a tone of indifferent recognition.
'How do you do, sir, to-day?'
'Not very well! my strength seems to be giving way, I think, by degrees.'
'We shall have warm weather for you soon again, sir; that will do you good.'
'I don't know,' said the colonel. 'I doubt it; I doubt it. Unless it could give me the power of eating, which it cannot.
'You have no appetite?'
'That does not express it.'
There was an almost imperceptible flash in the eyes that were looking down at him, the features, however, retaining their composed gravity.
'Perhaps shad will tempt you. We shall have them very soon now. Can't you eat shad?'
'Shad,' repeated the colonel. 'That's your New England piscatory dainty? I have never found out why it is so reckoned.'
'You cannot have eaten them, sir; that's all. That is, not cooked properly. Take one broiled over a fire of corn cobs.'
'A fire of corn cobs!'
'Yes, sir; over the coals of such a fire, of course, I mean.'
'Ah! What's the supposed advantage?'
'Flavour, sir; gusto; a spicy delicacy, which from being the spirit of the fire comes to be the spirit of the fish. It is difficult to put anything so ethereal into words.' This was spoken with the utmost seriousness.
'Ah!' said the colonel. 'Possibly. Barker manages those things.'
'You do not feel well enough to read to-day, sir?'
'Yes,' said the colonel, 'yes. One must do something. As long as one lives, one must try to do something. Bring your book here, William, if you please. I can listen, lying here.'
The hour that followed was an hour of steady work. The colonel liked his young neighbour, who belonged to a family also of English extraction, though not quite so recently moved over as the colonel's own. Still, to all intents and purposes, the Dallases were English; had English connections and English sympathies; and had not so long mingled their blood with American that the colour of it was materially altered. It was natural that the two families should have drawn near together in social and friendly relations; which relations, however, would have been closer if in church matters there had not been a diverging power, which kept them from any extravagance of neighbourliness. This young fellow, however, whom the colonel called 'William,' showed a carelessness as to church matters which gave him some of the advantages of a neutral ground; and latterly, since his wife's death, Colonel Gainsborough had taken earnestly to the fine, spirited young man; welcomed his presence when he came; and at last, partly out of sympathy, partly out of sheer loneliness and emptiness of life, he had offered to read the classics with him, in preparation for college. And this for several months now they had been doing; so that William was a daily visitor in the colonel's house.
CHAPTER III.
THE BOX OF COINS.
The reading went on for a good hour. Then the colonel rose from his sofa and went out, and young Dallas turned to Esther. During this hour Esther had been sitting still in her corner by her boxes; not doing anything; and her face, which had brightened at William's first coming in, had fallen back very nearly to its former heavy expression. Now it lighted up again, as the visitor left his seat and came over to her. He had not been so taken up with his reading but he had noticed her from time to time; observed the drooping brow and the dull eye, and the sad lines of the lips, and the still, spiritless attitude. He was touched with pity for the child, whom he had once been accustomed to see very different from this. He came and threw himself down on the floor by her side.
'Well, Queen Esther!' said he. 'What have you got there?'
'Coins.'
'Coins! What are you doing with them?'
'Nothing.'
'So it seems. What do you want to do?'
'I wanted to amuse myself.'
'And don't succeed? Naturally. What made you think you would? Numismatology isn't what one would call a lively study. What were you going to do with these old things, eh?'
'Nothing,' said Esther hopelessly. 'I used to hear papa talk about them; and I liked to hear him.'
'Why don't you get him to talk to you about them again?'
'Oh, he was not talking to me.'
'To whom, then?'
Esther hesitated; the young man saw a veil of moisture suddenly dim the grave eyes, and the lips that answered him were a little unsteady.
'It was mamma,' she breathed rather than spoke.
'And you liked to hear?' he went on purposely.
'Oh, yes. But now I can't understand anything by myself.'
'You can understand by yourself as much as most people I know. Let us see what you have got here. May I look?'
He lifted a small piece of metal out of its nest, in a shallow tray which was made by transverse slips of wood to be full of such nests, or little square compartments. The trays were beautifully arranged, one fitting close upon another till they filled the box to its utmost capacity.
'What have we here? This piece has seen service. Here is a tree, Queen Esther—a flourishing, spreading tree—and below it the letters, R. E. P. F., if I read aright, and then the word "Reich." What is that,