"Will you never like me as well as you do Jack?" he inquires, sadly, looking at her with eyes so loving, that one would think her own must catch the infection. But, no; they remain coldly bright, with the cold brightness of friendship. "Never." "Not after ten years?" "No." "Nor twenty?" "No." "Nor thirty?" "No, nor a thousand. Cannot you see what a different thing it is? If one loses a lover one can get a hundred more just as good as, if not better than, the one lost; but if I were to lose Jack--oh, God! how can I suggest anything so awful--who could give me another brother?" "So be it, then, since it must be that I am to play second fiddle all my life (sighing); but, Essie, you'll promise to write to me every day, won't you?" "Certainly not." "Every second day, then?" "Certainly not." "Twice a week, then?" "Per--haps; if I have anything to say." "And you'll be sure not to stay beyond the fortnight?" "That depends. If they are _fine_, and inclined to 'country cousin' me, I shall probably be back the day after to-morrow: if they make a great fuss with me, and if Mr. Gerard is young and handsome and civil-spoken, I dare say you will not see me again under two months." He looks so sincerely pained that her conscience smites her. "There," she says, "I have teased you enough for one day; let us kiss and make friends,--that is, figuratively. Come," putting out her hand to draw him along with her, "let us go to the kitchen garden and see if the wasps have left us any apricots. If Bessy were here, she would tell us some pleasing anecdote of how some people went and picked apricots on the Sabbath, and got stung in the throat and swelled, and died in great agonies; but I'm willing to run the risk if you are." * * * * * Nine o'clock! The maid-servants are at evening church, combining the double advantage of _making their souls_ and meeting their sweethearts. Esther, happily rid of hers, is sitting on the ground at the French window of the study, beside her brother. The rooks that blackened the meadow awhile ago have flapped heavily home to the mile-off rookery. It is such a great, still world; who would fancy that there were so many noisy men, barking dogs, snorting steam-engines in it? It seems a world of stars and flowers, as one would imagine it after reading one of Mrs. Heman's poems.