They stood for a moment hand in hand. Not a sound could be heard save the water lisping in the spring. He touched her hair. “Beautiful hair!” he half whispered. “If it had been cut off, when you came so near having the fever, I should have asked you to give me a curl.”
His veins throbbed with tenderness—between these two there was a tie nearer than blood—the tie of comradeship. One couldn’t think of relations more subtle or pure.
“Give me your knife,” she said.
Glenn raised her face, touching her chin gently with the tips of his fingers.
“No, no,” he said. “It is much prettier where it is. I wouldn’t let you cut one off.”
She turned and closed her violin case with a snap.
CHAPTER XI.
When he had gone, Esther went back to the woods. The thought of his coming with the Christmas time kept her nature alive and glowing. Her interest in music became more absorbing than ever. She practiced for hours at a stretch. This exceptional interest was a triumph that had given the old grandfather a steadier balance of mind, when during these years he had tried to fill her mother’s place, nurturing, encouraging the possibilities that lay in this young soul, ennobling, inspiring a deeper meaning to life. Glenn Andrews had helped him. He appreciated that. They saw him occasionally when they went in to her lessons. Esther seemed to realize that Mr. Campbell was making a sacrifice for her sake and every week the professor could see the forward step she had made.
The college monthly came to her regularly now. It always had poems or stories by Glenn Andrews. All these she preserved. There was a sort of reverence in her care of them. They were a part of him—his creations. In the satisfaction derived from them, she became more impatient as to her own imperfections. The ripe, rich beauty of autumn trailed by in all its glory without the love it once had from her. Her walks became less frequent. She felt a relief when the snow first fell. Snow always suggested Christmas. She kept such close watch that the calendar was not needed to tell her when it was near. In the innocence of her heart, she pictured Glenn Andrews watching the hours go by with the same impetuous eagerness—he who had gone back to his old solitary life, as though nothing had dropped in for a moment to change it.
It was Christmas. A light snow lay over the valley.