I am afraid I answered mother absently, for, looking up, I caught her wistful glance at me. Carrie was at her night school, and Uncle Geoffrey had been called out. Jack was learning her lessons in the front parlor, and only Dot kept us company. "You must find it very different from the Cedars," she said, regretfully; "all that luxury must have spoiled you for home, Esther. Don't think I am complaining, my love, if I say you seem a little dull to-night." "Oh, mother!" flushing up to my temples with shame and irritation at her words; and then another look at the worn face under the widow's cap restrained my momentary impatience. Dot, who was watching us, struck in in his childish way. "Do you like the Cedars best, Essie? Would you rather be with Flurry than me?" My own darling! The bare idea was heresy, and acted on me like a moral _douche_. "Oh! mother and Dot," I said, "how can you both talk so? I am not spoiled--I refuse to be spoiled. I love the Cedars, but I love my own dear little home best." And at this moment I believed my own words. "Dot, how can you be so faithless--how could I love Flurry best? And what would Allan say? You are our own little boy, you know; he said so, and you belong to us both." And Dot's childish jealousy vanished. As for dear mother, she smiled at me in a sweet, satisfied way. "That is like our own old Esther. You were so quiet all tea-time, my dear, that I fancied something was amiss. It is so nice having you working beside me again," she went on, with a little gentle artifice. "I have missed your bright talk so much in the evenings." "Has Carrie been out much?" I asked; but I knew what the answer would be. "Generally three evenings in the week," returned mother, with a sigh, "and her home evenings have been so engrossed of late. Mrs. Smedley gives her all sorts of things to do--mending and covering books; I hardly knew what." "Carrie never sings to us now," put in Dot. "She is too tired, that is what she always says; but I cannot help thinking a little music would be a healthy relaxation for her; but she will have it that with her it is waste of time," said mother. Waste of time to sing to mother! I broke my thread in two with indignation at the thought. Yes, I was wanted at home, I could see that; Deborah told me so in her taciturn way, when I went to the kitchen to speak to her and Martha. I had sad work with my room before I slept that night, when Jack was fast asleep; and I was tired out when I crept shivering into my cold bed. I hardly seemed to have slept an hour before I saw Martha's unlovely face bending over me with the flaming candle, so different from Miss Ruth's trim maid. "Time to get up, Miss Esther, if you are going to dress Master Dot before breakfast. It is mortal cold, to be sure, and raw as raw; but I have brought you a cup of hot tea, as you seemed a bit down last night."