There was a long succession of months during which things went on after this fashion. Very weary months to Esther; indeed, months covered by so thick a gloom that part of the child's life consisted in the struggle to break it. Letters did not come frequently from Pitt, even to his father and mother; he wrote that it was difficult to get a vessel to take American letters at all, and that the chances were ten to one, if accepted, that they would never get to the hands they were intended for. American letters or American passengers were sometimes held to vitiate the neutrality of a vessel; and if chased she would be likely to throw them, that is, the former, overboard. Pitt was detained still in Lisbon by the difficulty of getting passports, as late as the middle of March, but expected then soon to sail for England. His passage was taken. So Mr. and Mrs. Dallas reported on one of their evening visits. They talked a great deal of politics at these visits, which sometimes interested Esther and sometimes bored her excessively; but this last bit of private news was brought one evening about the end of April. 'He has not gained much by his winter's work,' remarked the colonel. 'He might as well have studied this term at Yale.' 'He will not have lost his time,' said Mr. Dallas comfortably. 'He is there, that is one thing; and he is looking about him; and now he will have time to feel a little at home in England and make all his arrangements before his studies begin. It is very well as it is.' 'If you think so, it is,' said the colonel drily. The next news was that Pitt had landed at Falmouth, and was going by post-chaise to London in a day or two. He reported having just got Lord Byron's two last poems,--'The Corsair' and 'The Bride of Abydos'; wished he could send them home, but that was not so easy. 'He had better send them home, or send them anywhere,' said the colonel; 'and give his attention to Sophocles and Euclid. Light poetry does not amount to anything; it is worse than waste of time.' 'I don't want a man to be made of Greek and Latin,' said Mrs. Dallas. 'Do you think, only the Ancients wrote what is worthy to be read, colonel?' 'They didn't write nonsense, my dear madam; and Byron does.' 'Nonsense!' 'Worse than nonsense.' 'Won't do to enquire too strictly into what the old Greeks and Romans wrote, if folks say true,' remarked Mr. Dallas slyly. 'In the dead languages it won't do a young man so much harm,' said the colonel. 'I hope William will give himself now to his Greek, since you have afforded him such opportunity.' Mrs. Dallas's air, as she rose to take leave, was inimitably expressive of proud confidence and rejection of the question. Mr. Dallas laughed carelessly and said, as he shook the colonel's hand, 'No fear!'