'What do you propose to do with those things, when they are dry? They are staining the book.' 'It's an old book, papa; it is no harm, is it?' 'What are you going to do with them? Are they to remain here permanently?' 'Oh, no, sir; they are only put here to dry. I put a weight on the book. They will be dry soon.' 'And what then?' 'Then I will take them out, papa. It's an old book.' 'And what will you do with them?' 'I will keep them, sir.' 'What is the use of keeping the flowers after their beauty is gone? I do not think that is worth while.' '_Some_ of their beauty is gone,' said Esther, with a certain tenderness for the plants manifested in her manner,--'but I love them yet, papa.' 'That is not wise, my child. Why should you love a parcel of dry leaves? Love what is worthy to be loved. I think I would throw them all in the fire.' 'Oh, papa!' 'That's the best, my dear. They are only rubbish. I object to the hoarding of rubbish. It is a poor habit.' The colonel turned his attention again to his book, and perhaps did not even remark how Esther sat with a disconsolate face on the floor, looking at her condemned treasures. He would not have understood it if he had seen. In his nature there was no key to the feeling which now was driving the tears into Esther's eyes and making her heart swell. Like many men, and many women, for the matter of that, Colonel Gainsborough had very little power of association. He would indeed have regarded with sacred reverence anything that had once belonged to his wife, down to her shoe; in that one instance the tension of feeling was strong enough to make the chords tremble under the lightest touch. In other relations, what did it matter? They were nothing to him; and if Colonel Gainsborough made his own estimate the standard of the worth of things, he only did what I am afraid we all do, more or less. At any rate, his was not one of those finer strung natures which recognise the possibility of worlds of knowledge and feeling not open to themselves. It is also just possible that he divined his daughter's sentiment in regard to the flowers enough to be jealous of it.