At last she arose and came toward the Doctor, with a strange sweetness playing about her mouth, and a strange calm in her voice.
"Dr. Van Anden, I am so much obliged to you. Don't be afraid to leave me now. I think I need to be quite alone."
And the Doctor, feeling that all words were vain and useless, silently bowed, and softly let himself out of the room.
The first thing upon which Ester's eye alighted when she turned again to the table was the letter in which she had been writing those last words: "Why life isn't half long enough for the things that I want to do." Very quietly she picked up the letter and committed it to the glowing coals upon the grate. Her mood had changed. By degrees, very quietly and very gradually, as such bitter things do creep in upon a family, it grew to be an acknowledged fact that Ester was an invalid. Little by little her circle of duties narrowed, one by one her various plans were silently given up, the dear mother first, and then Sadie, and finally the children, grew into the habit of watching her footsteps, and saving her from the stairs, from the lifting, from every possible burden. Once in a long while, and then, as the weeks passed, more frequently, there would come a day in which she did not get down further than the little sitting-room, but was established amid pillows on the couch, "enjoying poor health," as she playfully phrased it.
So softly and silently and surely the shadow crept and crept, until when June brought roses and Abbie. Ester received her in her own room, propped up among the pillows in her bed. Gradually they grew accustomed to that also, as God in his infinite mercy has planned that human hearts shall grow used to the inevitable. They even told each other hopefully that the warm weather was what depressed her so much, and as the summer heat cooled into autumn she would grow stronger. And she had bright days in which she really seemed to grow strong, and which deceived every body save Dr. Van Anden and herself.
During one of those bright days Sadie came from school full of a new idea, and curled herself in front of Ester's couch to entertain her with it.
"Mr. Hammond's last," she said. "Such a curious idea, as like him as possible, and like nobody else. You know that our class will graduate in just two years from this time, and there are fourteen of us, an even number, which is lucky for Mr. Hammond. Well, we are each, don't you think, to write a letter, as sensible, honest, and piquant as we can make it, historic, sentimental, poetic, or otherwise, as we please, so that it be the honest exponent of our views. Then we are to make a grand exchange of letters among the class, and the young lady who receives my letter, for instance, is to keep it sealed, and under lock and key, until graduation day, when it is to be read before scholars, faculty, and trustees, and my full name announced as the signature; and all the rest of us are to perform in like manner."
"What is supposed to be the object?" queried Abbie.
"Precisely the point which oppressed us, until Mr. Hammond complimented us by announcing that it was for the purpose of discovering how many of us, after making use of our highest skill in that line, could write a letter that after two years we should be willing to acknowledge as ours."
Ester sat up flushed and eager. "That is a very nice idea," she said, brightly. "I'm so glad you told me of it. Sadie, I'll write you a letter for that day. I'll write it to-morrow, and you are to keep it sealed until the evening of that day on which you graduate. Then when you have come up to your room and are quite alone, you are to read it. Will you promise, Sadie?"