"Well, Aline, my dear," said the latter, "to tell you the truth, Esther's not going to take off her jacket. She has promised, unless you and Pierce forbid it, and I don't think you will, to try what life is like with a cantankerous old woman." "What! To live with you, Lady O'Brien?" "Yes, my dear, to make me so happy, if it will not mean unhappiness to herself. There are so many of you here, Aline, and I am a lonely old woman with a very thirsty heart for a little girl of my own." Aline looked at Pierce. "Esther seems to have consented," he said, glancing at her half-fearful face. "Eh, Essie?" "Yes, Pierce," Esther said in a low voice. "Well, that being so, Aline, I don't think it's for us to forbid it. Esther's old enough to choose for herself." Lady O'Brien turned round and gave him a hug which disarranged all his pillows, so that Aline had to come and shake them up again. As she did so I noticed that she touched Pierce's face lightly with her cheek. Perhaps Aline felt that he too would soon be going away from her--a longer journey than across the valley to Annagower. When she had arranged him comfortably in silence she came back to her seat behind the tea-table. "Very well, dear friend," she said, "there is nothing for us to do but to thank you and say yes. But Esther will need some preparation." "None--all that is my affair, Aline. If you could know how I have longed to dress a girl." So Esther never took off her jacket at all, but sat there like a visitor paying an afternoon call, crumbling her cake into her saucer absent-mindedly. But she was not going to leave me like that. I went over to her and put my arm round her neck. "Come for one more talk, Essie," I whispered, "while you are still ours and not Lady O'Brien's." For I don't think any of them felt Esther's going as I did. We had always been so closely knit together, as close as the twins, or Aline and Pierce, and though of late the tie had been loosening a little, yet I had never felt that it could fray or grow thin. She came without a word. When we had reached our own room upstairs we sat down on my bed side by side and twined our arms about each other. So we sat in silence for several minutes. At last Esther whispered in my ear, in her low passionate voice: "We shall never be less to each other, Hilda,--never, never. Never, till all the seas run dry." But she was going away, and I felt that things would not be quite the same again, and so I felt I could not speak, but a few very bitter tears--for I do not cry easily--came into my eyes, smarting and burning them. "You will be happy, Essie," I said, "and your happiness is what really matters. And you will make that dear old soul as happy as the day is long." "Happy?" she said, answering the first part of my sentence and not the last, "I do not know about happiness, Hilda. My dear old godmother would buy me the world if she could, but happiness may be beyond her reach."