Monday morning she and Townsend took the early train for Boston. He went with her to the Carter house and Esther liked its white-haired, soft-voiced proprietor at first sight. The next “port of call”—as her uncle termed it—was the Conservatory. She was thrilled by that. Then followed a marvelous shopping tour, piloted by Mrs. Carter, with purchases of gowns and hats and shoes—all sorts of necessities and luxuries. Townsend returned to Harniss on the evening train. His good-by was brief and gruffly spoken, but Esther had a feeling that he was as loath to leave her as she was, just then, to be left. He cleared his throat, started to speak, cleared his throat again and then laid his big hand on her shoulder.
“Be a good girl,” he said. “Work hard and make us proud of you. I’ll be at the depot Saturday noon to meet you.... Humph! Well, I guess that’s all. Good-by.”
He strode off down the street. She turned back into the house, feeling like a marooned sailor upon a desert island, with the ship which had left her there disappearing below the horizon. All her resolution was needed to prevent her running after him and begging to be taken home again. If she had it is by no means certain that he would not have done it. The library, which had begun to seem almost a pleasant place again, would now be lonelier than ever. Saturday looked a long way off.
All that winter she studied hard, making progress, earning praise from her teachers and learning to use her really pleasing voice to better advantage. She soon grew accustomed to the new life and to enjoy it. She made new friends, young friends, and Jane Carter was careful that they should be, as Foster Townsend had especially directed, “of the right kind.” Each week-end she spent at home in the big house at Harniss. Usually, although not always, Miss Clark and Millard took Sunday dinner there. When, in June, the term ended she came back to be greeted with the news that she and her uncle were really going to California. The tickets had been purchased and they were to start in a few days.
That was a glorious summer, spent amid scenes which turned to realities the pictures in the geographies and books of travel. Foster Townsend was a very satisfactory traveling companion. She had but to mention a wish to visit some new locality and her wish was granted. She had learned to like him long before, now she loved him. As for him, he was happier than he had been for years. He never would have admitted it, but this charming, talented niece of his was now his sincerest, his chief interest. Even the great lawsuit, dragging its eternal length along between one set of lawyers who prodded it on to the Supreme Court and another set who held it back, was secondary. When in his native town he was, of course, still active in politics and local affairs, but Varunas complained that the beloved trotters were neglected more than they ought to be.
“About all the old man lives for nowadays,” vowed Mr. Gifford, “is Saturdays and Sundays. He’s either talkin’ about what happened last Sunday or what’s goin’ to happen next Sunday. I told him—last Tuesday, ’twas—that Claribel acted to me as if she’d strained her off foreleg. What do you cal’late he said? ‘Hum!’ says he, ‘did I tell you what the head of the Conservatory said last time I was up there? Said she had as promisin’ a suppranner as he’d heard since he commenced teachin’.’ What do you think of that for Foster Townsend to say when he had a lame mare on his hands? A year ago and he’d have cussed me from keel to main truck for lettin’ the mare get that way. Now if she’d broke her neck he wouldn’t have cared so long as Esther’s suppranner wan’t cracked. Well, she is a smart girl, but she can’t do 2.18 around a mile track. Bah!”
The second winter in Boston was more wonderful than the first. Esther was becoming accustomed to being a rich young woman and the perquisites of such a position. The city friends were agreeable, occasional evenings at concerts, the theater and even the opera less of a marvelous novelty than at first, although not less enjoyable. She enjoyed the week-ends at Harniss also, but she no longer looked forward to them as oases in a desert of homesickness. She saw her Aunt Reliance and Millard less frequently, not from design, but because her Uncle Foster had always so many plans for those week-ends that she had scarce time to run down to the cottage or the millinery shop. She was less eager to hear the village gossip, less interested in the doings of the townspeople. She heard scraps of it occasionally, of course. Frank Cahoon was at home again, the Boston firm of shipping merchants having decided to risk continuing in business without his valuable aid. Once Millard happened to mention the incident of the runaway and it reminded him of young Griffin.
“He’s gone to New York to study paintin’, I understand,” said Mr. Clark. “Not house paintin’—no, no, he could learn that just as well or better in Denboro. He’s set on paintin’ pictures, so a Denboro feller told me. Old ’Lisha Cook, his grand-dad, was down on the notion, says he never saw a picture yet that was worth the nail to hang it on, nor a picture painter that was fit for much but hangin’. He wanted Bob to stick to college—he was up to Yale, or some such place. However, the boy had some money of his own—left him by his father’s folks, they say—so ’Lisha didn’t feel he could stand in the way of his spendin’ it even on craziness. ‘Let him daub till he daubs away his last dollar,’ says the old man. ‘Then maybe he’ll be willin’ to go to work at somethin’ sensible.’”
The mention of her rescuer’s name caused Esther a momentary thrill of interest. For a month or two after the eventful afternoon of the horse trot she had thought of Bob Griffin a good deal. He was a good-looking youth and he had—well, perhaps not saved her life, exactly, like the hero of a story—but his handling of the runaway span had been almost, if not quite, heroic. At any rate it was the nearest thing to heroism she had known. There was a romantic tinge to the whole affair which was pleasing to remember and she had remembered it for a time. Of late, however, there had been other near romances. There was a young fellow at the Conservatory who was nice—very nice; and still another who would have called if Mrs. Carter had permitted masculine callers. Bob’s romance was a thing of the distant past. It happened when she was a girl in the country. Now she was a city young lady with, or so every one prophesied, a career before her. It interested her to know that Bob Griffin was also seeking a career, but the interest was vague and casual.
Foster Townsend was, by this time, entirely satisfied with his handling of the skittish colt. She was well on the way to becoming the stylish and properly paced animal he had set out to make her. It gratified him to notice that she now turned to him for advice and guidance more than to Reliance Clark. He had announced his intention of making her his entirely. He had done it. Life was worth while, after all. If Arabella did know what was going on in this mortal world he was sure she must approve. The inevitable male was always in the offing, of course. Some day the right man would appear. The certainty no longer worried him. Now, he felt sure, Esther would not presume to choose that man without his help. She was high-spirited still and required careful handling, but she was “trotting in harness” and he held the reins.