After much consideration the colonel had determined that Esther should be a sort of half boarder at Miss Fairbairn's school; that is, she should stay there from Monday morning to Saturday night. Esther combated this determination as far as she dared.
'Papa, will not that make me a great deal more expense to you than I need be?'
'Not much difference, my dear, as to that. If you came back every nightI should have to keep a horse; now that will not be necessary, andChristopher will have more time to attend to other things.'
'But, papa, it will leave you all the week alone!'
'That must be, my child. I must be alone all the days, at any rate.'
'Papa, you will miss me at tea, and in the evenings.'
'I must bear that.'
It troubles me, papa.'
'And that you must bear. My dear, I do not grudge the price I pay. See you only that I get what I pay for.'
'Yes, papa,' Esther said meekly. She could go no further.
Miss Fairbairn was a tall woman, but not imposing either in manner or looks. Her face was sensible, with a mixture of the sweet and the practical which was at least peculiar; and the same mixture was in her manner. This was calm and gentle in the utmost degree; also cool and self-possessed equally; and it gave Esther the impression of one who always knew her own mind and was accustomed to make it the rule for all around her. A long talk with this lady was the introduction to Esther's school experience. It was a very varied talk; it roved over a great many fields and took looks into others; it was not inquisitive or prying, and yet Esther felt as if her interlocutor were probing her through and through, and finding out all she knew and all she did not know. In the latter category, it seemed to Esther, lay almost everything she ought to have known. Perhaps Miss Fairbairn did not think so; at any rate her face expressed no disappointment and no disapproval.
'In what way have you carried on your study of history, my dear?' she finally asked.
'I hardly can tell; in a box of coins, I believe,' Esther answered.
'Ah? I think I will get me a box of coins.'
Which meant, Esther could not tell what. She found herself at last, to her surprise, put with the highest classes in the English branches and in Latin.
Her work was immediately delightful. Esther was so buried in it that she gave little thought or care to anything else, and did not know or ask what place she took in the esteem of her companions or of her teachers. As the reader may be more curious, one little occurrence that happened that week shall serve to illustrate her position; did illustrate it, in the consciousness of all the school family, only not of Esther herself.
It was at dinner one day. There was a long table set, which reached nearly from the front of the house to the back, through two rooms, leaving just comfortable space for the servants to move about around it. Dinner was half through. Miss Fairbairn was speaking of something in the newspaper of that morning which had interested her, and she thought would interest the girls.
'I will read it to you,' she said. 'Miss Gainsborough, may I ask you to do me a favour? Go and fetch me the paper, my dear; it lies on my table in the schoolroom; the paper, and the book that is with it.'
There went a covert smile round the room, which Esther did not see; indeed, it was too covert to be plain even to the keen eyes of Miss Fairbairn, and glances were exchanged; and perhaps it was as well for Esther that she did not know how everybody's attention for the moment was concentrated on her movements. She went and came in happy ignorance.
Miss Fairbairn received her paper, thanked her, and went on then to read to the girls an elaborate account of a wonderful wedding which had lately been celebrated in Washington. The bride's dress was detailed, her trousseau described, and the subsequent movements of the bridal party chronicled. All was listened to with eager attention.
'What do you think of it, Miss Dyckman?' the lady asked after she had finished reading.
'I think she was a happy girl, Miss Fairbairn.'
'Humph! What do you say, Miss Delavan?'
'Uncommonly happy, I should say, ma'am.'
'Is that your opinion, Miss Essing?'
'Certainly, ma'am. There could be but one opinion, I should think.'
'What could make a girl happy, if all that would not?' asked another.
'Humph! Miss Gainsborough, you are the next; what are your views on the subject?'
Esther's mouth opened, and closed. The answer that came first to her lips was sent back. She had a fine feeling that it was not fit for the company, a feeling that is expressed in the admonition not to cast pearls before swine, though that admonition did not occur to her at the time. She had been about to appeal to the Bible; but her answer as it was given referred only to herself.
'I believe I should not call "happiness" anything that would not last,' she said.
There was a moment's silence. What Miss Fairbairn thought was not to be read from her face; in other faces Esther read distaste or disapprobation.
'Why, Miss Fairbairn, nothing lasts, if you come to that,' cried a young lady from near the other end of the table.
'Some things more than others,' the mistress of the house opined.
'Not what you call "happiness," ma'am.'
'That's a very sober view of things to take at your age, Miss Disbrow.'
'Yes, ma'am,' said the young lady, tittering. 'It is true.'
'Do you think it is true, Miss Jennings?'
There was a little hesitation. Miss Jennings said she did not know.Miss Lawton was appealed to.
'Is there no happiness that is lasting, Miss Lawton?'
'Well, Miss Fairbairn, what we call happiness. One can't be married but once,' the young lady hazarded.
That called forth a storm of laughter. Laughter well modulated and kept within bounds, be it understood; no other was tolerated in Miss Fairbairn's presence.
'I haveheardof people who had that happiness two or three times,' the lady said demurely. 'Is there, then, no happiness short of being married?'
'Oh, Miss Fairbairn! you know I do not mean that, but all the things you read to us of: the diamonds, and the beautiful dresses, and the lace, and the presents; and then the travelling, and doing whatever she liked.'
'Very few people do whatever they like,' murmured Miss Fairbairn.
'I mean all that. And that does not last—only for a while. The diamonds last, of course'—
'But the pleasure of wearing them might not. True. Quite right, Miss Lawton. But I come back to my question. Is therenohappiness on earth that lasts?'
There was silence.
'We are in a bad way, if that is our case. Miss Gainsborough, what do you say? I come back to you again. Is there any such thing on earth as happiness, according to your terms?—something that lasts?'
Esther was in doubt again how to answer.
'I think there is, ma'am,' she said, with a look up at her questioner.
'Pray what is it?'
Did she know? or did she not know? Esther was not certain; was not certain that her words would find either understanding or sympathy in all that tableful. Nevertheless, the time had come when they must be spoken. Which words? for several Bible sayings were in her mind.
'"Blessed is every one that feareth the Lord: that walketh in His ways. For thou shalt eat the labour of thine hands: happy shalt them be, and it shall be well with thee."'
The most profound silence followed this utterance. It had been made in a steady and clear voice, heard well throughout the rooms, and then there was silence. Esther fancied she discerned a little sympathetic moisture in the eyes of Miss Fairbairn, but also that lady at first said nothing. At last one voice in the distance was understood to declare that its owner 'did not care about eating the labour of her hands.'
'No, my dear, you would surely starve,' replied Miss Fairbairn. 'Is that what the words mean, do you think, Miss Gainsborough?'
'I think not, ma'am.'
'What then? won't you explain?'
'There is a reference, ma'am, which I thought explained it. "Say ye to the righteous that it shall be well with him: for they shall eat the fruit of their doings." And another word perhaps explains it. "Oh fear the Lord, ye His saints; for there is no want to them that fear Him."'
'No want to them, hey?' repeated Miss Fairbairn. 'That sounds very much like happiness, I confess. What do you say, Miss Lawton?—Miss Disbrow? People that have no want unsatisfied must be happy, I should say.'
Silence. Then one young lady was heard to suggest that there were no such people in the world.
'The Bible says so, Miss Baines. What can you do against that?'
'Miss Fairbairn, there is an old woman that lives near us in the country—very poor; she is an old Christian,—at least so they say,—and she isverypoor. She has lost all her children and grandchildren; she cannot work any more, and she lives upon charity. That is, if you call it living. I know she often has very little indeed to live upon, and that very poor, and she is quite alone; nobody to take the least care for her, or of her.'
'So you think shedoeswant some things. Miss Gainsborough, what have you to say to that?'
'What doesshethink about it?' Esther asked.
She looked as she spoke at the young lady who had given the instance, but the latter took no notice, until Miss Fairbairn said,
'Miss Baines, a question was put to you.'
'I am sure I don't know,' Miss Baines replied. 'Theysayshe is a very happy old woman.'
'You doubt it?'
'I should not be happy in her place, ma'am. I don't see, for my part, how it is possible. And it seems to me certainly she wants a great many things.'
'What do you think, Miss Gainsborough.'
'I think the Bible must be true, ma'am.'
'That is Faith's answer.'
'And then, the word is, "Blessed is every one thatfeareth the Lord;" it is true of nobody else, I suppose.'
'My dear, is that the answer of Experience?'
'I do not know, ma'am.' But Esther's smile gave a very convincing affirmative. 'But the promise is, "No good thing will He withhold from them that walk uprightly."'
'There you have it. "No good thing;" and, "from them that walk uprightly." Miss Disbrow, when you were getting well of that fever, did your mother let you eat everything?'
'Oh no, ma'am; not at all.'
'What did she keep from you?'
'Nearly everything I liked, ma'am.'
'Was it cruelty, or kindness?'
'Kindness, of course. What I liked would have killed me.'
'Then she withheld from you "no good thing," hey? while she kept from you nearly everything you liked.'
There was silence all round the table. Then Miss Baines spoke again.
'But, ma'am, that old woman has not a fever, and she don't get any nice things to eat.'
'It is quite likely she enjoys her meals more than you do yours. But granting she does not, are you the physician to know what is good for her?'
'She does not want any physician, ma'am.'
A laugh ran round the table, and Miss Fairbairn let the subject drop.When dinner was nearly over, however, she remarked:
'You want light for your practising. I will excuse you, MissGainsborough, if you wish to go.'
Esther went, very willingly. Then Miss Fairbairn held one of her little discourses, with which now and then she endeavoured to edify her pupils.
'Young ladies, I am going to ask you to take pattern by Miss Gainsborough. Did you notice her movements when she went to do that little errand for me?'
Silence. Then murmurs of assent were heard, not very loud, nor enthusiastic. Miss Fairbairn did not expect that, nor care. What she wanted was to give her lesson.
'Did you observe how she moved? She went like a swan'—
'On land' her keen ears heard somebody say under breath.
'No, not on the land; like a swan on the water; with that smooth, gliding, noiseless movement which is the very way a true lady goes. There was the cat lying directly in her way; Miss Gainsborough went round her gracefully, without stopping or stumbling. The servant came right against her with a tray full; Miss Gainsborough stood still and waited composedly till the obstacle was removed. You could not hear her open or shut the door; you could not hear her foot on the stairs, and yet she went quick. And when she came back, she did not rustle and bustle with her newspaper, but laid it nicely folded beside me, and went back to her seat as quietly as she had left it. Young ladies, that is good breeding in motion.'
It is just possible that the foregoing experiences did not tend to increase Esther's popularity among her companions. She got forthwith the name offavourite, the giving of which title is the consolatory excuse to themselves of those who have done nothing to deserve favour. However, whether she were popular or not was a matter that did not concern Esther. She was full of the delight of learning, and bent upon making the utmost of her new advantages. Study swallowed her up, so to speak; at least, swallowed up all lesser considerations and attendant circumstances. Not so far but that Esther got pleasure also from these; she enjoyed the novelty, she enjoyed the society, even she enjoyed the sight of so many in the large family; to the solitary girl, who had all her life lived and worked alone, the stir and breeze and bustle of a boarding-school were like fresh air to the lungs, or fresh soil to the plant. Whether her new companions liked her, she did not so much as question; in the sweetness of her own happy spirit she likedthem, which was the more material consideration. She liked every teacher that had to do with her; after which, it is needless to add, that Miss Gainsborough had none but favourers and friends in that part of her new world. And it was so delicious to be learning; and in such a mood one learns fast. Esther felt, when she went home at the end of the week, that she was already a different person from the one who had left it on Monday morning.
Christopher came for her with an old horse and a gig, which was a new subject of interest.
'Where did you get them?' she asked, as soon as she had taken her seat, and begun to make her observations.
'Nowheres, Miss Esther; leastwaysIdidn't. The colonel, he's bought 'em of some old chap that wanted to get rid of 'em.'
'Bought? Then they are ours!' exclaimed Esther with delight. 'Well, the gig seems very nice; is it a good horse, Christopher?'
'Well, mum,' said Mr. Bounder in a tone of very moderate appreciation, 'master says he's the remains of one. The colonel knows, to be sure, but I can't say as I see the remains. I think, maybe, somewheres in the last century he may have deserved high consideration; at present, he's got four legs, to be sure, such as they be, and a head. The head's the most part of him.'
'Obstinate?' said Esther, laughing.
'Well, mum, he thinks he knows in all circumstances what is best to be done. I'm only a human, and naturally I thinks otherwise. That makes differences of opinion.'
'He seems to go very well.'
'No doubt, mum,' said Christopher; 'you let him choose his way, and he'll go uncommon; that he do.'
He went so well, in fact, that the drive was exhilarating; the gig was very easy; and Esther's spirits rose. At her age, the mind is just opening to appreciate keenly whatever is presented to it; every new bit of knowledge, every new experience, a new book or a new view, seemed to be taken up by her senses and her intelligence alike, with a fresh clearness of perception, which had in itself something very enjoyable. But this afternoon, how pleasant everything was! Not the weather, however; a grey mist from the sea was sweeping inland, veiling the country, and darkening the sky, and carrying with it a penetrating raw chillness which was anything but agreeable. Yet to Esther it was good weather. She was entered at school; she had had a busy, happy week, and was going home; there were things at home that she wanted to put in order; and her father must be glad to have her ministry again. Then learning was so delightful, and it was so pleasant to be, at least in some small measure, keeping step with Pitt. No, probably notthat;certainly not that; Pitt would be far in advance of her. At least, in some things, he would be far in advance of her; in others, Esther said to herself, he should not. He might have more advantages at Oxford, no doubt; nevertheless, if he ever came back again to see his old friends, he should find her doing her part and standing up to her full measure of possibilities. Would Pitt come back? Surely he would, Esther thought. But would he, in such a case, make all the journey to New York to look up his old teacher and his old playmate and scholar? She answered this query with as little hesitation as the other. And so, it will be perceived, Esther's mind was in as brisk motion as her body during the drive out to Chelsea.
For at that day a wide stretch of country, more or less cultivated, lay between what is now Abingdon Square and what was then the city. Esther's new home was a little further on still, down near the bank of the river; a drive of a mile and a half or two miles from Miss Fairbairn's school; and the short November day was closing in already when she got there.
Mrs. Barker received her almost silently, but with gladness in every feature, and with a quantity of careful, tender ministrations, every one of which had the effect of a caress.
'How is papa? Has he missed me much?'
'The colonel is quite as usual, mum; and he didn't say to me as his feelin's were, but in course he's missed you. The house itself has missed you, Miss Esther.'
'Well, I am glad to be home for a bit, Barker,' said Esther, laughing.
'Surely, I know it must be fine for you to go to school, mum; but a holiday's a holiday; and I've got a nice pheasant for your supper, Miss Esther, and I hope as you'll enjoy it.'
'Thank you, Barker. Oh, anything will be good;' and she ran into the sitting-room to see her father.
The greetings here were quiet, too; the colonel was never otherwise, in manner. And then Esther gave a quick look round the room to see if all were as she wanted it to be.
'My dear,' said the colonel, gazing at her, 'I had no idea you were so tall!'
Esther laughed. I seem to have grown, oh, inches, in feeling, this week, papa. I don't wonder I look tall.'
'Never "wonder," my dear, at anything. Are you satisfied with your new position?'
'Very much, papa. Have you missed me?—badly, I mean?'
'There is no way of missing a person pleasantly, that I know,' said her father; 'unless it is a disagreeable person. Yes, I have missed you, Esther; but I am willing to miss you.'
This was not quite satisfactory to Esther's feeling; but her father's wonted way was somewhat dry and self-contained. The fact that this was an unwonted occasion might have made a difference, she thought; and was a little disappointed that it did not; but then, as the colonel went back to his book, she put off further discussions till supper-time, and ran away to see to some of the house arrangements which she had upon her heart. In these she was soon gaily busy; finding the work delightful after the long interval of purely mental action. She had done a good many things, she felt with pleasure, before she was called to tea. Then it was with new enjoyment that she found herself ministering to her father again; making his toast just as he liked it, pouring out his tea, and watching over his wants. The colonel seemed to take up things simply where she had left them; and was almost as silent as ever.
'Who has made your toast while I have been away, papa?' Esther asked, unable to-night to endure this silence.
'My toast? Oh, Barker, of course.'
'Did she make it right?'
'Right? My dear, I have given up expecting to have servants do somethings as they ought to be done. Toast is one of the things. They are outside of the limitations of the menial mind.'
'What is the reason, papa? Can't they be taught?'
'I don't know, my dear. I never have been able to teach them. They always think toast is done when it is brown, and the browner the better, I should say. Also it is beyond their comprehension that thickness makes a difference. There was an old soldier once I had under me in India; he was my servant; he was the only man I ever saw who could make a piece of toast.'
'What are some of the other things that cannot be taught, papa?'
'A cup of tea.'
'Does not Barker make your tea good?' asked Esther, in some dismay.
'She can do many other things,' said the colonel. 'She is a very competent woman.'
'So I thought. What is the matter with the tea, papa—the tea she makes?'
'I don't know, my dear, what the matter is. It is without fragrance, and without sprightliness, and generally about half as hot as it ought to be.'
'No good toast and no good tea! Papa, I am afraid you have missed me very much at meal times?'
'I have missed you at all times—more than I thought possible. But it cannot be helped.'
'Papa,' said Esther, suddenly very serious, 'canit not be helped?'
'No, my dear. How should it?'
'I might stay at home.'
'We have come here that you might go to school.'
'But if it is to your hurt, papa'—
'Not the question, my dear. About me it is of no consequence. The matter in hand is, that you should grow up to be a perfect woman—perfect as your mother was; that would have been her wish, and it is mine. To that all other things must give way. I wish you to have every information and every accomplishment that it is possible for you in this country to acquire.'
'Is there not as good a chance here as in England, papa?'
'What do you mean by "chance," my dear? Opportunity? No; there cannot yet be the same advantages here as in an old country, which has been educating its sons and its daughters in the most perfect way for hundreds of years.'
Esther pricked up her ears. The box of coins recurred to her memory, and sundry conversations held over it with Pitt Dallas. Whereby she had certainly got an impression that it was not so very long since England's educational provisions and practices, for England's daughters at least, had been open to great criticism, and displayed great lack of the desirable. 'Hundreds of years!' But she offered no contradiction to her father's remark.
'I would like you to be equal to any Englishwoman in your acquirements and accomplishments,' he repeated musingly. 'So far as in New York that is possible.'
'I will try what I can do, papa. And, after all, it depends more on the girl than on the school, does it not?'
'Humph! Well, a good deal depends on you, certainly. Did Miss Fairbairn find you backward in your studies, to begin with?'
'Papa,' said Esther slowly, 'I do not think she did.'
'Not in anything?'
'In French and music, of course.'
'Of course! But in history?'
'No, papa.'
'Nor in Latin?'
'Oh no, papa.'
'Then you can take your place well with the rest?'
'Perfectly, papa.'
'Do you like it? And does Miss Fairbairn approve of you? Has the week been pleasant?'
'Yes, sir. I like it very much, and I think she likes me—if only you get on well, papa. How have you been all these days?'
'Not very well. I think, not so well as at Seaforth. The air here does not agree with me. There is a rawness—I do not know what—a peculiar quality, which I did not find at Seaforth. It affects my breast disagreeably.'
'But, dear papa!' cried Esther in dismay, 'if this place does not agree with you, do not let us stay here! Pray do not for me!'
'My dear, I am quite willing to suffer a little for your good.'
'But if is bad for you, papa?'
'What does that matter? I do not expect to live very long in any case; whether a little longer or a little shorter, is most immaterial. I care to live only so far as I can be of service to you, and while you need me, my child.'
'Papa, when should I not need you?' cried Esther, feeling as if her breath were taken away by this view of things.
'The children grow up to be independent of the parents,' said the colonel, somewhat abstractly. 'It is the way of nature. It must be; for the old pass away, and the young step forward to fill their places. What I wish is that you should get ready to fill your place well. That is what we have come here for. We have taken the step, and we cannot go back.'
'Couldn't we, papa? if New York is not good for you?'
'No, my dear. We have sold our Seaforth place.'
'Mr. Dallas would sell it back again.'
'I shall not ask him. And neither do I desire to have it back, Esther.I have come here on good grounds, and on those grounds I shall stay.How I personally am affected by the change is of little consequence.'
The colonel, having by this time finished his third slice of toast and drunk up his tea, turned to his book. Esther remained greatly chilled and cast down. Was her advantage to be bought at the cost of shortening her father's life? Was her rich enjoyment of study and mental growth to be balanced by suffering and weariness on his part?—every day of her new life in school to be paid for by such a day's price at home? Esther could not bear to think it. She sat pondering, chewing the bitter cud of these considerations. She longed to discuss them further, and get rid, if possible, of her father's dismal conclusions; but with him she could not, and there was no other. When her father had settled and dismissed a subject, she could rarely re-open a discussion upon it. The colonel was an old soldier; when he had delivered an opinion, he had in a sort given his orders; to question was almost to be guilty of insubordination. He had gone back to his book, and Esther dared not say another word; all the more her thoughts burnt within her, and for a long time she sat musing, going over a great many things besides those they had been talking of.
'Papa,' she said, once when the colonel stirred and let his book fall for a minute, 'do you think Pitt Dallas will come home at all?'
'William Dallas! why should he not come home? His parents will want to see him. I have some idea they expect him to come over next summer.'
'Tostay, papa?'
'To stay the vacation. He will go back again, of course, to keep his terms.'
'At Oxford?'
'Yes; and perhaps afterwards in the Temple.'
'The Temple, papa? what is that?'
'A school of law. Do you not know so much, Esther?'
'Is he going to be a lawyer?'
'His father wishes him to study for some profession, and in that he is as usual judicious. The fact that William will have a great deal of money does not affect the matter at all. It is my belief that every man ought to have a profession. It makes him more of a man.'
'Do you think Pitt will end by being an Englishman, papa?'
'I can't tell, my dear. That would depend on circumstances, probably. I should think it very likely, and very natural.'
'But heisan American.'
'Half.'
The colonel took up his book again.
'Papa,' said Esther eagerly, 'do you think Pitt will come to see us here?'
'Come to see us? If anything brings him to New York, I have no doubt he will look us up.'
'You do not think he would come all the way on purpose? Papa, he would be very much changed if he did not.'
'Impossible to say, my dear. He is very likely to have changed.' And the colonel went back to his reading.
'Papa does not care about it,' thought Esther. 'Oh, can Pitt be so much changed as that?'
The identically same doubt busied some minds in another quarter, where Mr. and Mrs. Dallas sat expecting their son home. They were not so much concerned with it through the winter; the Gainsboroughs had been happily got rid of, and were no longer in dangerous proximity; that was enough for the time. But as the spring came on and the summer drew nigh, the thought would recur to Pitt's father and mother, whether after all they were safe.
'He mentions them in every letter he writes,' Mrs. Dallas said. She and her husband were sitting as usual in their respective easy chairs on either side of the fire. Not for that they were infirm, for there was nothing of that; they were only comfortable. Mrs. Dallas was knitting some bright wools, just now mechanically, and with a knitted brow; her husband's brow showed no disturbance. It never did.
'That's habit,' he answered to his wife's remark.
'But habit with Pitt is a tenacious thing. What will he do when he comes home and finds they are gone?'
'Make himself happy without them, I expect.'
'It wouldn't be like Pitt.'
'You knew Pitt two and a half years ago. He was a boy then; he will be a man now.'
'Do you expect the man will be different from the boy?'
'Generally are. And Pitt has been going through a process.'
'I can see something of that in his letters,' said the mother thoughtfully. 'Not much.'
'You will see more of it when he comes. What do you say in answer to his inquiries?'
'About the Gainsboroughs? Nothing. I never allude to them.'
Silence. Mr. Dallas read his paper comfortably. Mrs. Dallas's brow was still careful.
'It would be like him as he used to be, if he were to make the journey to New York to find them. And if we should seem to oppose him, it might set his fancy seriously in that direction. There's danger, husband. Pitt is very persistent.'
'Don't see much to tempt him in that direction.'
'Beauty! And Pitt knows he will have money enough; he would not care for that.'
'I do,' said Mr. Dallas, without ceasing to read his paper.
'I would not mind the girl being poor,' Mrs. Dallas went on, 'for Pittwillhave money enough—enough for both; but, Hildebrand, they are incorrigible dissenters, and I donotwant Pitt's wife to be of that persuasion.'
'I won't have it, either.'
'Then we shall do well to think how we can prevent it. If we could have somebody here to take up his attention at least'—
'Preoccupy the ground,' said Mr. Dallas. 'The colonel would say that is good strategy.'
'I do not mean strategy,' said Mrs. Dallas. 'I want Pitt to fancy a woman proper for him, in every respect.'
'Exactly. Have you one in your eye? Here in America it is difficult.'
'I was thinking of Betty Frere.'
'Humph! If she could catch him,—she might do.'
'She has no money; but she has family, and beauty.'
'You understand these things better than I do,' said Mr. Dallas, half amused, half sharing his wife's anxiety. 'Would she make a comfortable daughter-in-law for you?'
'That is secondary,' said Mrs. Dallas, still with a raised brow, knitting her scarlet and blue with out knowing what colour went through her fingers. Perhaps her husband's tone had implied doubt.
'If she can catch him,' Mr. Dallas repeated. 'There is no calculating on these things. Cupid's arrows fly wild—for the most part.'
'I will ask her to come and spend the summer here,' Mrs. Dallas went on. 'There is nothing like propinquity.'
In those days the crossing of the Atlantic was a long business, done solely by the help or with the hindrance of the winds. And there was no telegraphing, to give the quick notice of a loved one's arrival as soon as he touched the shore. So Mr. and Mrs. Dallas had an anxious time of watching and uncertainty, for they could not tell when Pitt might be with them. It lasted, this time of anxiety, till Seaforth had been in its full summer dress for some weeks; and it was near the end of a fair warm day in July that he at last came. The table was set for tea, and the master and mistress of the house were seated in their places on either side the fireplace, where now instead of a fire there was a huge jar full of hemlock branches. The slant sunbeams were stretching across the village street, making that peaceful alternation of broad light and still shadows which is so reposeful to the eye that looks upon it. Then Mrs. Dallas's eye, which was not equally reposeful, saw a buggy drive up and stop before the gate, and her worsteds fell from her hands and her lap as she rose.
'Husband, he is come' she said, with the quietness of intensity; and the next moment Pitt was there.
Yes, he had grown to be a man; he was changed; there was the conscious gravity of a man in his look and bearing; the cool collectedness that belongs to maturer years; the traces of thought and the lines of purpose. It had been all more or less to be seen in her boy before, but now the mother confessed to herself the growth and increase of every manly and promising trait in the face and figure she loved. That is, as soon as the first rush of delight had had its due expression, and the first broken and scattering words were spoken, and the three sat down to look at each other. The mother watched the broad brow, which was whiter than it used to be; the fine shoulders, which were even straighter and broader than of old; and the father noticed that his son overtopped him. And Mrs. Dallas's eyes shone with an incipient moisture which betrayed a soft mood she had to combat with; for she was not a woman who liked sentimental scenes; while in her husband's grey orbs there flashed out every now and then a fire of satisfied pride, which was touching in one whose face rarely betrayed feeling of any kind. Pitt was just the fellow he had hoped to see him; and Oxford had been just the right place to send him to. He said little; it was the other two who did most of the talking. The talking itself for some time was of that disjointed, insignificant character which is all that can get out when minds are so full, and enough when hearts are so happy. Indeed, for all that evening they could not advance much further. Eyes supplemented tongues sufficiently. It was not till a night's sleep and the light of a new day had brought them in a manner to themselves that anything less fragmentary could be entered upon. At breakfast all parties seemed to have settled down into a sober consciousness of satisfied desire. Then Mr. Dallas asked his son how he liked Oxford?
Pitt exhausted himself in giving both the how and the why. Yet no longer like a boy.
'Think you'll end by settling in England, eh?' said his father, with seeming carelessness.
'I have not thought of it, sir.'
'What's made old Strahan take such a fancy to you? Seems to be a regular love affair.'
'He is a good friend to me,' Pitt answered seriously. 'He has shown it in many ways.'
'He'll put you in his will, I expect.'
'I think he will do nothing of the kind. He knows I will have enough.'
'Nobody knows it,' said the older Dallas drily. 'I might lose allmymoney, for anything you can tell.'
The younger man's eyes flashed with a noble sparkle in them. 'What I say is still true, sir. What is the use of Oxford?'
'Humph!' said his father. 'The use of Oxford is to teach young men of fortune to spend their money elegantly.'
'Or to enable young men who have no fortune to do elegantly without it.'
'There is no doing elegantly without money, and plenty of it,' said the elder man, looking from under lowered eyelids, in a peculiar way he had, at his son. 'Plenty of it, I tell you. You cannot have too much.'
'Money is a good dog.'
'A goodwhat?'
'A good servant, sir, I should say. You may see a case occasionally where it has got to be the master.'
'What do you mean by that?'
'A man unable to be anything and spoiled for doing anything worth while, because he has so much of it; a man whose property is so large that he has come to look upon money as the first thing.'
'It is the first thing and the last thing, I can tell you. Without it, a man has to play second fiddle to somebody else all his life.'
'Do you think there is no independence but that of the purse, sir?'
'Beggarly little use in any other kind. In fact, there is not any other kind, Pitt. What passes for it is just fancy, and struggling to make believe. The really independent man is the man who need not ask anybody else's leave to do anything.'
Pitt let the question drop, and went on with his breakfast, for which he seemed to have a good appetite.
'Your muffins are as good as ever, mother,' he remarked.
Mrs. Dallas, to judge by her face, found nothing in this world so pleasant as to see Pitt eat his breakfast, and nothing in the world so important to do as to furnish him with satisfactory material. Yet she was not a foolish woman, and preserved all the time her somewhat stately presence and manner; it was in little actions and words now and then that this care for her son's indulgence and delight in it made itself manifest. It was manifest enough to the two who sat at breakfast with her; Mr. Dallas observing it with a secret smile, his son with a grateful swelling of the heart, which a glance and a word sometimes conveyed to his mother. Mrs. Dallas's contentment this morning was absolute and unqualified. There could be no doubt what Betty Frere would think, she said to herself. Every quality that ought to grace a young man, she thought she saw embodied before her. The broad brow, and the straight eyebrow, and the firm lips, expressed what was congenial to Mrs. Dallas's soul; a mingling of intelligence and will, well defined, clear and strong; but also sweet. There was thoughtfulness but no shadow in the fine hazel eyes; no cloud on the brow; and the smile when it came was frank and affectionate. His manner pleased Mrs. Dallas infinitely; it had all the finish of the best breeding, and she was able to recognise this.
'What are you going to be, Pitt?' his father broke in upon some laughing talk that was going on between mother and son.
'To be, sir? I beg your pardon!'
'After you have done with Oxford, or with your college course. You know I intend you to study for a profession. Which profession would you choose?'
Pitt was silent.
'Have you ever thought about it?'
'Yes, sir. I have thought about it.'
'What conclusion did you come to?'
'To none, yet,' the young man answered slowly. 'It must depend.'
'On what?
'Partly,—on what conclusion I come to respecting something else,' Pitt went on in the same manner, which immediately fastened his mother's attention.
'Perhaps you will go on and explain yourself,' said his father. 'It is good that we should understand one another.'
Yet Pitt was silent.
'Is it anything private and secret?' his father asked, half laughing, although with a touch of sharp curiosity in his look.
'Private—not secret,' Pitt answered thoughtfully, too busy with his own thoughts to regard his father's manner. 'At least the conclusion cannot be secret.'
'It might do no harm to discuss the subject,' said his father, still lightly.
'I cannot see how it would do any good. It is my own affair. And I thought it might be better to wait till the conclusion was reached. However, that may not be for some time; and if you wish'—
'We wish to share in whatever is interesting you, Pitt,' his mother said gently.
'Yes, mother, but at present things are not in any order to please you.You had better wait till I see daylight.'
'Is it a question of marriage?' asked his father suddenly.
'No, sir.'
'A question of Uncle Strahan's wishes?' suggested Mrs. Dallas.
'No, mother.' And then with a little hesitation he went on: 'I have been thinking merely what master I would serve. Upon that would depend, in part, what service I would do;—of course.'
'What master? Mars or Minerva, to wit? or possibly Apollo? Or what was the god who was supposed to preside over the administration of justice? I forget.'
'No, sir. My question was broader.'
'Broader!'
'It was, briefly, the question whether I would serve God or Mammon.'
'I profess I do not understand you now!' said his father.
'You are aware, sir, the world is divided on that question; making two parties. Before going any farther, I had a mind to determine to which of them I would belong. How can a navigator lay his course, unless he knows his goal?'
'But, my boy,' said his mother, now anxiously and perplexedly, 'what do you mean?'
'It amounts to the question, whether I would be a Christian, mother.'
Mr. Dallas slued his chair round, so as to bring his face somewhat out of sight; Mrs. Dallas, obeying the same instinctive impulse, kept hers hidden behind the screen of her coffee-urn, for she would not her son should see in it the effect of his words. Her answer, however, was instantaneous:
'But, my dear, youarea Christian.'
'Am I? Since when, mother?'
'Pitt, you were baptized in infancy,—you were baptized by that good and excellent Bishop Downing, as good a man, and as holy, as ever was consecrated, here or anywhere. He baptized you before you were two months old. That made you a Christian, my boy.'
'What sort of a one, mother?'
'Why, my dear, you were taught your catechism. Have you forgotten it? In baptism you were made "a member of Christ, a child of God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven." You have learned those words, often enough, and said them over.'
'That will do to talk about, mother,' said Pitt slowly; 'but in what sense is it true?'
'My dear!—in every sense. How can you ask? It is part of thePrayer-Book.'
'It is not part of my experience. Up to this time, my life and conscience know nothing about it. Mother, the Bible gives certain marks of the people whom it calls "disciples" and "Christians." I do not find them in myself.'
Pitt lifted his head and looked at his mother as he spoke; a grave, frank, most manly expression filling his face. Mrs. Dallas met the look with one of intense worry and perplexity. 'What do you mean?' she said helplessly; while a sudden shove of her husband's chair spoke forhismood of mind, in its irritated restlessness. 'Marks?' she repeated. 'Christians are notmarkedfrom other people.'
'As I read the Bible, it seems to me they must be.'
'I do not understand you,' she said shortly. 'I hope you will explain yourself.'
'I owe it to you to answer,' the young man said thoughtfully; 'it is better, perhaps, you should know where I am, that you may at least be patient with me if I do not respond quite as you would wish to your expectations. Mother, I have been studying this matter a great while; but as to the preliminary question, whether I am already what the Bible describes Christians to be, I have been under no delusion at all. The marks are plain enough, and they are not in me.'
'What marks?'
'It is a personal matter,' Pitt went on a little unwillingly; 'it must be fought through somehow in my own mind; but some things are plain enough. Mother, the servants of Christ "follow" Him; it is the test of their service; I never did, nor ever thought or cared what the words meant. The children of God are known by the fact that they love Him and keep his commandments. So the Bible says. I have not loved Him, and have not asked about His commandments. I have always sought my own pleasure. The heirs of the kingdom of heaven have chosen that world instead of this; and between the two is just the choice I have yet to make. That is precisely where I am.'
'But, my dear Pitt,' said Mrs. Dallas, while her husband kept an ominous silence, 'you have always led a most blameless life. I think you judge yourself too hardly. You have been a good son, always!' and her eyes filled, partly with affection and partly with chagrin. To what was all this tending? 'You havealwaysbeen a good son,' she repeated.
'To you, mother. Yes, I hope so.'
'And, my dear, you were confirmed. What did that mean?'
'It meant nothing, mother, so far as I was concerned. It amounted to nothing. I did not know what I was doing. I did not think of the meaning the words might bear. It was to me a mere form, done because you wished it, and because it was said to be proper; the right thing to do; I attached no weight to it, and lived just the same after as before. Except that for a few days I went under a little feeling of constraint, I remember, and also carried my head higher with a sense of added dignity.'
'And what is your idea of a Christian now, then?' Mrs. Dallas asked, between trouble and indignation.
'I am merely taking what the Bible says about it, mother.'
'Which every man interprets for himself,' added Mr. Dallas drily.
'Where words are so plain, there can hardly be any question of interpretation. For instance'—
'Let that be,' said Mr. Dallas; 'and tell us, if you can, what is your idea of the "choice" you say you have to make. A choice between what?'
'The one thing runs into the other,' said Pitt; 'but it does not signify at which end we begin. The question is, I suppose, in short, which world I will live for.'
'Live for both! That is the sensible way.'
'But, if you will pardon me, sir, impracticable.'
'How impracticable?'
'It has been declared so by the highest authority, and it has been found so in practice. I see it to be impracticable.'
'Ido not. Where's the impracticability?' Mr. Dallas had wheeled round now and was regarding his son attentively, with a face of superior, cold, rather scornful calm. Mr. Dallas's face was rarely anything else but calm, whatever might be going on beneath the calm. Pitt's face was not exactly so quiet; thought was working in it, and lights and shades sometimes passed over it, which his father carefully studied. 'Where's the impossibility?' he repeated, as Pitt's answer tarried.
'The impossibility of walking two ways at once.'
'Will you explain yourself? I do not see the application.'
He spoke with clear coldness, perhaps expecting that his son would be checked or embarrassed by coming against that barrier to enthusiasm, a cold, hard intellect. Pitt, however, was quite as devoid of enthusiasm at the moment as his father, and far more sure of his ground, while his intellect was full as much astir. His steadiness was not shaken, rather gained force, as he went on to speak, though he did not now lift his eyes, but sat looking down at the white damask which covered the breakfast table, having pushed his plate and cup away from him.
'Father and mother,' he said, 'I have been looking at two opposite goals. On one side there is—what people usually strive for—honour, pleasure, a high place in the world's regard. If I seek that, I know what I have to do. I suppose it is what you want me to do. I should distinguish myself, if I can; climb the heights of greatness; make myself a name, and a place, and then live there, as much above the rest of the world as I can, and enjoying all the advantages of my position. That is about what I thought I would do when I went to Oxford. It is a career bounded by this world, and ended when one quits it. You ask why it is impossible to do this and the other thing too? Just look at it. If I become a servant of Christ, I give up seeking earthly honour; I do not live for my own pleasure; I apply all I have, of talents or means or influence, to doing the will of a Master whose kingdom is not of this world, and whose ways are not liked by the world. I see very plainly what His commands are, and they bid one be unlike the world and separate from it. Do you see the impossibility I spoke of?'
'But, my dear,' said Mrs. Dallas eagerly, 'you exaggerate things.'
'Which things, mother?'
'It is not necessary for you to be unlike the world; that is extravagance.'
Pitt rose, went to the table, where a large family Bible and Book of Common Prayer lay, and fetched the Bible to the breakfast-table. During which procedure Mr. Dallas shoved his chair round again, to gain his former position, and Mrs. Dallas passed her hand over her eyes once or twice, with her a gesture of extreme disturbance. Pitt brought his book, opened it on the table before him, and after a little turning of the leaves stopped and read the following:
'"If ye were of the world, the world would love his own; but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you."'
'Yes,at that time,' said Mrs. Dallas eagerly,—'at that time. Then the heathen made great opposition. All that is past now.'
'Was it only the heathen, mother?'
'Well, the Jews, of course. They were as bad.'
'Why were they? Just for this reason, that they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God. They chose this world. But the apostle James,—here it is,—he wrote:
'"Whosoever will be a friend of the world, is the enemy of God."'
'Wouldn't you then be a friend of the world, Pitt?' his mother asked reprovingly.
'I should say,' Mr. Dallas remarked with an amused, indifferent tone,—'I should say that Pitt had been attending a conventicle; only at Oxford that is hardly possible.'
The young man made no answer to either speaker; he remained with his head bent down over the Bible, and a face almost stern in its gravity. Mrs. Dallas presently repeated her question.
'Pitt, would you not be a friend to the world?'
'That is the question, mother,' he said, lifting his face to look at her. 'I thought it right to tell you all this, that you may know just where I stand. Of course I have thought of the question of a profession; but this other comes first, and I feel it ought first to be decided.'
With which utterance the young man rose, put the big Bible in its place, and left the room.
The two who were left sat still for a few moments, without speaking.Mrs. Dallas once again made that gesture of her hand across her brow.
'You need not disturb yourself, wife,' said her husband presently. 'Young men must have a turn at being fools, once in a way. It is not much in Pitt's way; but, however, it seems his turn has come. There are worse types of the disorder. I would rather have this Puritan scruple to deal with than some other things. The religious craze passes off easier than a fancy for drinking or gambling; it is hot while it lasts, but it is easier to cure.'
'But Pitt is so persistent!'
'In other things. You will see it will not be so with this.'
'He's very persistent,' repeated the mother. 'He always did stick to anything he once resolved upon.'
'He is not resolved upon this yet. Distraction is the best thing, not talk. Where's Betty Frere? I thought she was coming.'
'She is coming. She will be here in a few days. I cannot imagine what has set Pitt upon this strange way of thinking. He has got hold of some Methodist or some other dreadful person; but where? It couldn't be at Oxford; and I am certain it was never in Uncle Strahan's house; where could it be?'
'Methodism began at Oxford, my dear.'
'It is one mercy that the Gainsboroughs are gone.'
'Yes,' said her husband; 'that was well done. Does he know?'
'I have never told him. He will be asking about them directly.'
'Say as little as you can, and get Betty Frere here.'
Pitt meanwhile had gone to his old room, his work-room, the scene of many a pleasant hour, and where those aforetime lessons to Esther Gainsborough had been given. He stood and looked about him. All was severe order and emptiness, telling that the master had been away; his treasures were safe packed up, under lock and key, or stowed away upon cupboard shelves; there was no pleasant litter on tables and floor, alluring to work or play. Was that old life, of work and play which mixed and mingled, light-hearted and sweet, gone for ever? Pitt stood in the middle of the floor looking about him, gathering up many a broken thread of association; and then, obeying an impulse which had been on him all the morning, he turned, caught up his hat, and went out.
He loitered down the village street. It was mid-morning now, the summer sun beating down on the wide space and making every big tree shadow grateful. Great overarching elms, sometimes an oak or a maple, ranged along in straight course and near neighbourhood, making the village look green and bowery, and giving the impression of an easy-going thrift and habit of pleasant conditions, which perhaps was not untrue to the character of the people. The capital order in which everything was kept confirmed the impression. Pitt, however, was not thinking of this, though he noticed it; the village was familiar to him from his childhood, and looked just as it had always done, only that the elms and maples had grown a little more bowery with every year. He walked along, not thinking of that, nor seeing the roses and syringa blossoms which gave him a sweet breath out of some of the gardens. He was not in a hurry. He was going back in mind to that which furnished the real answer to his mother's wondering query,—whence Pitt could have got his new ideas? It was nobody at Oxford or in London, neither conventicle nor discourse; but a girl's letter. He went on and on, thinking of it and of the writer. What wouldshesay to his disclosures, which his father and mother could do nothing with? Would she be in condition to give him the help he knew he must not expect from them? She, a girl? who did not know the world? Yet she was the goal of Pitt's present thoughts, and her house the point his footsteps were seeking, slowly and thoughtfully.
He was not in a hurry. Indeed, he was too absorbedly busy with his own cogitations and questions to give full place to the thought of Esther and the visit he was about to make. Besides, it was not as in the old time. He had no image before him now of a forlorn, lonely child, awaiting his coming as the flowers look for the sun. Things were rather turned about; he thought of Esther as the one in the sunlight, and himself as in need of illumination. He thought of her as needing no comfort that he could give; he half hoped to find the way to peace through her leading. But yes, she would be glad to see him; she would not have forgotten him nor lost her old affection for her old playfellow, though the entire cessation of letters from either her or her father had certainly been inexplicable. Probably it might be explained by some crankiness of the colonel. Esther would certainly be glad to see him. He quickened his steps to reach the house.
He hardly knew it when he came to it, the aspect of things was so different from what he remembered. Truly it had been always a quiet house, with never a rush of company or a crowd of voices; but there had been life; and now?—Pitt stood still at the little gate and looked, with a sudden blank of disappointment. There could be nobody there. The house was shut up and dead. Not a window was open; not a door. In the little front garden the flowers had grown up wild and were struggling with weeds; the grass of the lawn at the side was rank and unmown; the honeysuckle vines in places were hanging loose and uncared-for, waving in the wind in a way that said eloquently, 'Nobody is here.' There was not much wind that summer day, just enough to move the honeysuckle sprays. Pitt stood and looked and queried; then yielding to some unconscious impulse, he went in through the neglected flowers to the deserted verandah, and spent a quarter of an hour in twining and securing the loose vines. He was thinking hard all the time. This was the place where he remembered sitting with Esther that day when she asked help of him about getting comfort. He remembered it well; he recalled the girl's subdued manner, and the sorrowful craving in the large beautiful eyes.NowEsther had found what she sought, and to-day he was nearly as unable to understand her as he had been to help her then. He fastened up the honeysuckles, and then he went and sat down on the step of the verandah and took Esther's letter out of his breast pocket, and read it over. He had read it many times. He did not comprehend it; but this he comprehended—that to her at least there was something in religion more heartfelt than a form, and more satisfying than a profession. To her it was a reality. The letter had set him thinking, and he had been thinking ever since. He had come here this morning, hoping that in talking with her she might perhaps give him some more light, and now she had disappeared. Strange that his mother should not have told him! What could be the explanation of this sudden disappearance? Disaster or death it could not be, for that she certainly would have told him.
Sitting there and musing over many things, his own great question ever and again, he heard a mower whetting his scythe somewhere in the neighbourhood. Pitt set about searching for the unseen labourer, and presently saw the man, who was cutting the grass in an adjoining field. Dismissing thought for action, in two minutes he had sprung over the fence and was beside the man; but the mower did not intermit the long sweeps of his scythe, until he heard Pitt's civil 'Good morning.' Then he stopped, straightened himself up, and looked at his visitor—looked him all over.
'Good mornin',' he replied. 'Guess you're the young squoire, ain't ye?'
If Pitt's appearance had been less supremely neat and faultless, I think the honest worker would have offered his hand; but the white linen summer suit, the polished boots, the delicate gloves, were too much of a contrast with his own dusty and rough exterior. It was no feeling of inferiority, be it well understood, that moved him to this bit of self-denial; only a self-respecting feeling of fitness. He himself would not have wanted to touch a dusty hand with those gloves on his own. But he spoke his welcome.
'Glad to see ye hum, squoire. When did ye come?'
'Last night, thank you. Whom am I talking to? I have been so long away,I have forgotten my friends.'
'I guess there's nobody hain't forgotten you, you'll find,' said the man, wiping his scythe blade with a wisp of grass; needlessly, for he had just whetted it; but it gave him an opportunity to look at the figure beside him.
'More than I deserve,' said Pitt. 'But I seem not to find some of my old friends. Do you know where is the family that used to live here?'
'Gone away, I guess.'
'I see they have gone away; but where have they gone?'
'Dunno, no more'n the dead,' said the man, beginning to mow again.
'You know whom I am speaking of?—Colonel Gainsborough.'
'I know. He's gone—that's all I kin tell ye.'
'Who takes care of the place?'
'The place? If you mean the house, nobody takes keer of it, I guess. There ain't nobody in it. The land hez as good keer as it ever hed. The squoire, he sees to that.'
'My father, do you mean?'
'Who else? It belongs to the squoire now, and he takes good keer o' allhesees to. He bought it, ye know, when the cunnel went away,' said the man, stopping work and resting on his scythe to look at Pitt again. 'He'd ha' let it, I guess, ef he could; but you see there ain't nobody that wants it. The folks in Seaforth all hez their own houses, and don't want nobody else's. Thereisfolks, they say, as 'd like to live in two houses to once,efthey could manage it; but I never heerd o' no one that could.'
'Do you know at all why the colonel went away?'
'Hain't an idee. Never knowed him particular, ye see, and so never heerd tell. The cunnel he warn't a sociable man by no means, and kep' himself mostly shut up. I think it's a man's loss; but there's different opinions, I suppose, on that p'int. As on every other! Folks du say, the cunnel warn't never to hum in Seaforth. Anyway, he ain't now.'
With which utterance he went to mowing again, and Pitt, after a courteous 'Good day,' left him.
Where could they be gone? And why should they have gone? And how was it that his mother in her many letters had never said a word about it? Nay, had let him go out this very morning to look for what she knew he would not find? And his father had bought the ground! There was something here to be inquired into. Meanwhile, for the present, he must do his thinking without Esther.
He walked on and on, slowly, under the shade of the great trees, along the empty, grassy street. He had plucked one or two shoots from the honeysuckles, long shoots full of sweetness; and as he went on and thought, they seemed to put in a word now and then. A word of reminder, not distinct nor logical, but with a blended meaning of Esther and sweetness and truth. Nothersweetness and truth, but that which she testified to, and which an inner voice in Pitt's heart kept declaring to be genuine. That lured him and beckoned him one way; and the other way sounded voices as if of a thousand sirens. Pleasure, pride, distinction, dominion, applause, achievement, power, and ease. Various forms of them, various colours, started up before his mind's eye; vaguely discerned, as to individual form, but every one of them, like the picadors in a bull-fight, shaking its little banner of distraction and allurement. Pitt felt the confusion of them, and at the same time was more than vaguely conscious on the other side of a certain steady white light which attracted towards another goal. He walked on in meditative musing, slowly and carelessly, not knowing where he was going nor what he passed on the way; till he had walked far. And then he suddenly stopped, turned, and set out to go back the road he had come, but now with a quick, measured, steady footfall which gave no indication of a vacillating mind or a laboured question.