The record of those same summer months in the house on the bank of the Hudson was somewhat different. Esther had her vacation too, which gave her opportunity to finish everything in the arrangements at home for which time had hitherto been lacking. The girl went softly round the house, putting a touch of grace and prettiness upon every room. It excited Mrs. Barker's honest admiration. Here it was a curtain; there it was a set of toilet furniture; in another place a fresh chintz cover; in a fourth, a rug that matched the carpet and hid an ugly darn in it. Esther made all these things and did all these things herself; they cost her father nothing, or next to nothing, and they did not even ask for Mrs. Barker's time, and they were little things, but the effect of them was not so. They gave the house that finished, comfortable, home-like air, which nothing does give but the graceful touch of a woman's fingers. Mrs. Barker admired; the colonel did not see what was done; but Esther did not work for admiration. She was satisfying the demand of her own nature, which in all things she had to do with called for finish, fitness, and grace; her fingers were charmed fingers, because the soul that governed them had itself such a charm, and worked by its own standard, as a honey bee makes her cell. Indeed, the simile of the honey bee would fit in more points than one; for the cell of the little winged worker is not fuller of sweetness than the girl made all her own particular domicile. If the whole truth must be told, however, there was another thought stirring in her, as she hung her curtains and laid her rugs; a half recognised thought, which gave a zest to every additional touch of comfort or prettiness which she bestowed on the house. She thought Pitt would be there, and she wanted the impression made upon him to be the pleasantest possible. He would surely be there; he was coming home; he would never let the vacation go by without trying to find his old friends. It was a constant spring of pleasure to Esther, that secret hope. She said nothing about it; her father, she knew, did not care so much for Pitt Dallas as she did; but privately she counted the days and measured the time, and went into countless calculations for which she possessed no sufficient data. She knew that, yet she could not help calculating. The whole summer was sweetened and enlivened by these calculations, although indeed they were a little like some of those sweets which bite the tongue.