Besides the printed advertisement above quoted, Mrs. Brandon has been advertising largely in private, by means of many long-winded epistles; has been seeking far and wide among the circle of her acquaintance for some grey maid, wife, or widow, in the tending of whose haggard, peevish age Esther may waste her sweet, ripe youth, unassailed by wicked men, in safe, respectable misery. And meanwhile Esther waits--waits through the fog-shrouded, sun-forgotten November days, through the eternal black November nights,--waits, straying lonely along the steaming tree-caverned wood-paths--the solemn charnels of the dead summer nations of leaves and flowers. Preachers are fond of drawing a parallel between us and those forest leaves; telling us that, as in the autumn they fall, rot, are dissolved, and mingle together, stamped down and shapeless, in brown confusion, and yet in the spring come forth again, fresh as ever; so shall we--who, in our autumn, die, rot, and are not--come forth again in our distant spring, in lordly beauty and gladness. So speaking, whether thinkingly or unthinkingly, they equivocate--they lie! It is not the _same_ leaves that reappear; others _like_ them burst from their sappy buds, and burgeon in the "green-haired woods;" but _not_ they--_not_ they! They stir not, nor is there any movement among the sodden earth-mass that was _them_. If the parallel be complete, others like us--others as good, as fair, as we! but yet _not we_--other than us, shall break forth in lusty youth, in their strong May-time; _but we_ shall rot on! "Oh touching, patient earth, That weepest in thy glee; Whom God created very good, And very mournful we!" how much longer can you bear the weight of all your dead children, that lie so heavy on your mother breast! * * * * * One morning, on joining the Brandon family before prayers, Esther finds Mrs. Brandon reading aloud a letter; but on Esther's entrance she desists. Hearing her voice stop, the young girl comes forward eagerly. "Is it about me?" she asks, panting, forgetting her morning salutations. "Yes, Esther," replies Mrs. Brandon, laconically, continuing to read, but this time to herself. Esther walks to the window, drums on the rain-beaten pane, returns to the table; takes up the bread-knife, and begins to chip bits of crust off the loaf; sits down, gets up again; then, unable to contain herself any longer, cries out, hastily, "Will it do?--will it do?" "If you will give me time, my dear, to finish this letter in peace, I shall have a better chance of being able to tell you," answers the old lady, drily.