Ester Ried

by Pansy

CHAPTER VI.

SOMETHING HAPPENS.

Now the letter which had caused so much trouble in the Ried family, and especially in Ester's heart, was, in one sense, not an ordinary letter. It had been written to Ester's cousin, Abbie, her one intimate friend, Uncle Ralph's only daughter. These two, of the same age, had been correspondents almost from their babyhood; and yet they had never seen each other's faces.

To go to New York, to her uncle's house, to see and be with Cousin Abbie, had been the one great dream of Ester's heart—as likely to be realized, she could not help acknowledging, as a journey to the moon, and no more so. New York was at least five hundred miles away; and the money necessary to carry her there seemed like a small fortune to Ester, to say nothing of the endless additions to her wardrobe which would have to be made before she would account herself ready. So she contented herself, or perhaps it would be more truthful to say she made herself discontented, with ceaseless dreams over what New York, and her uncle's family, and, above all, Cousin Abbie, were like; and whether she would ever see them; and why it had always happened that something was sure to prevent Abbie's visits to herself; and whether she should like her as well, if she could be with her, as she did now; and a hundred other confused and disconnected thoughts about them all.

Ester had no idea what this miserable, restless dreaming of hers was doing for her. She did not see that her very desires after a better life, which were sometimes strong upon her, were colored with impatience and envy.

Cousin Abbie was a Christian, and wrote her some earnest letters; but to Ester it seemed a very easy matter indeed for one who was surrounded, as she imagined Abbie to be, by luxury and love, to be a joyous, eager Christian. Into this very letter that poor Julia had sent sailing down the stream, some of her inmost feelings had been poured.

"Don't think me devoid of all aspirations after something higher," so the letter ran. "Dear Abbie, you, in your sunny home, can never imagine how wildly I long sometimes to be free from my surroundings, free from petty cares and trials, and vexations, which, I feel, are eating out my very life. Oh, to be free for one hour, to feel myself at liberty, for just one day, to follow my own tastes and inclinations; to be the person I believe God designed me to be; to fill the niche I believe He designed me to fill! Abbie, I hate my life. I have not a happy moment. It is all rasped, and warped, and unlovely. I am nothing, and I know it; and I had rather, for my own comfort, be like the most of those who surround me—nothing, and not know it. Sometimes I can not help asking myself why I was made as I am. Why can't I be a clod, a plodder, and drag my way with stupid good nature through this miserable world, instead of chafing and bruising myself at every step."

Now it would be very natural to suppose that a young lady with a grain of sense left in her brains, would, in cooler moments, have been rather glad than otherwise, to have such a restless, unhappy, unchristianlike letter hopelessly lost. But Ester felt, as has been seen, thoroughly angry that so much lofty sentiment, which she mistook for religion, was entirely lost Yet let it not be supposed that one word of this rebellious outbreak was written simply for effect. Ester, when she wrote that she "hated her life," was thoroughly and miserably in earnest. When, in the solitude of her own room, she paced her floor that evening, and murmured, despairingly: "Oh, if something would only happen to rest me for just a little while!" she was more thoroughly in earnest than any human being who feels that Christ has died to save her, and that she has an eternal resting-place prepared for her, and waiting to receive her, has any right to feel on such a subject. Yet, though the letter had never reached its destination, the pitying Savior, looking down upon his poor, foolish lamb in tender love, made haste to prepare an answer to her wild, rebellious cry for help, even though she cried blindly, without a thought of the Helper who is sufficient for all human needs.

"Long looked for, come at last!" and Sadie's clear voice rang through the dining-room, and a moment after that young lady herself reached the pump-room, holding up for Ester's view a dainty envelope, directed in a yet more dainty hand to Miss Ester Ried. "Here's that wonderful letter from Cousin Abbie which you have sent me to the post-office after three times a day for as many weeks. It reached here by the way of Cape Horn, I should say, by its appearance. It has been remailed twice."

Ester set her pail down hastily, seized the letter, and retired to the privacy of the pantry to devour it; and for once was oblivious to the fact that Sadie lunched on bits of cake broken from the smooth, square loaf while she waited to hear the news.