“You must be very proud of her,” Glenn turned to the old man, “I think she has a future.”
“She ought to have a chance for it,” said Mr. Campbell. A glance from Esther’s flushed face to the suddenly compressed lips of her grandfather made Glenn understand that that was as near to complaint as he ever came. He might have been impatient in his days of strength, but on the coming of adversity this proud man had learned to wait in silence. He seldom breathed a syllable of the sorrow he bore on account of his hands being tied.
“Practice is half the battle; you ought to spend hours at it every day,” Glenn said to Esther as she tossed her head.
“I don’t ever expect to study under anyone again. What’s the use going half way when I know I can never go the other half?”
“But you will if you only have belief in yourself.”
Mr. Campbell was delighted as he listened. Here was someone interested in his little girl. He trusted a kindliness so genuine, an interest so evidently sincere.
A child’s soul is easily impressed, responsive to the first panorama that passes before it. Mr. Campbell hoped Glenn Andrews would come again.
CHAPTER VIII.
The next few weeks for Esther were transitions between content and longing. The trees of the woodland, that had been her playfellow, now had a rival. Of Glenn Andrews she had made a hero, a king. She regarded him as a being to inspire wonder and mystery.
His simplest word or gesture spoke directly to the heart.