Ester Ried

by Pansy

CHAPTER XV.

WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE?

Ester stood before her mirror, arranging some disordered braids of hair. She had come up from the dining-room for that purpose. It was just after dinner. The family, with the addition of Mr. Foster, were gathered in the back parlor, whither she was in haste to join them.

"How things do conspire to hinder me!" she exclaimed impatiently as one loose hair-pin after another slid softly and silently out of place. "This horrid ribbon doesn't shade with the trimming on my dress either. I wonder what can have become of that blue one?" With a jerk Sadie's "finery-box" was produced, and the contents tumbled over. The methodical and orderly Ester was in nervous haste to get down to that fascinating family group; but the blue ribbon, with the total depravity of all ribbons, remained a silent and indifferent spectator of her trials, snugged back in the corner of a half open drawer. Ester had set her heart on finding it, and the green collar-box came next under inspection, and being impatiently shoved back toward its corner when the quest proved vain, took that opportunity for tumbling over the floor and showering its contents right and left.

"What next, I wonder?" Ester muttered, as she stooped to scoop up the disordered mass of collars, ruffles, cuffs, laces, and the like, and with them came, face up, and bright, black letters, scorching into her very soul, the little card with its: "I solemnly agree, as God shall help me." Ester paused in her work, and stood upright with a strange beating at her heart. What did this mean? Was it merely chance that this sentence had so persistently met her eye all this day, put the card where she would? And what was the matter with her anyway? Why should those words have such strange power over her? why had she tried to rid herself of the sight of them? She read each sentence aloud slowly and carefully. "Now," she said decisively, half irritated that she was allowing herself to be hindered, "it is time to put an end to this nonsense. I am sick and tired of feeling as I have of late—these are all very reasonable and proper pledges, at least the most of them are. I believe I'll adopt this card. Yes, I will—that is what has been the trouble with me. I've neglected my duty—rather I have so much care and work at home, that I haven't time to attend to it properly—but here it is different. It is quite time I commenced right in these things. To-night, when I come to my room, I will begin. No, I can not do that either, for Abbie will be with me. Well, the first opportunity then that I have—or no—I'll stop now, this minute, and read a chapter in the Bible and pray; there is nothing like the present moment for keeping a good resolution. I like decision in everything—and, I dare say, Abbie will be very willing to have a quiet talk with Mr. Foster before I come down."

And sincerely desirous to be at peace with her newly troubled conscience—and sincerely sure that she was in the right way for securing that peace—Ester closed and locked her door, and sat herself down by the open window in a thoroughly self-satisfied state of mind, to read the Bible and to pray.

Poor human heart, so utterly unconscious of its own deep sickness—so willing to plaster over the unhealed wound! Where should she read? She was at all times a random reader of the Bible; but now with this new era it was important that there should be a more definite aim in her reading. She turned the leaves rapidly, eager to find a book which looked inviting for the occasion, and finally seized upon the Gospel of John as entirely proper and appropriate, and industriously commenced: "'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God.' Now that wretched hair-pin is falling out again, as sure as I live; I don't see what is the matter with my hair to-day. I never had so much trouble with it—'All things were made by him; and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life: and the life was the light of men.'—There are Mr. and Miss Hastings. I wonder if they are going to call here? I wish they would. I should like to get a nearer view of that trimming around her sack; it is lovely whatever it is.—'And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.'" Now it was doubtful if it had once occurred to Ester who this glorious "Word" was, or that He had aught to do with her. Certainly the wonderful and gracious truths embodied in these precious verses, truths which had to do with every hour of her life, had not this evening so much as made an entrance into her busy brain; and yet she actually thought herself in the way of getting rid of the troublesome thoughts that had haunted her the days just past. The verses were being read aloud, the thoughts about the troublesome hair and the trimmings on Miss Hastings' sack were suffered to remain thoughts, not to put into words—had they been perhaps even Ester would have noticed the glaring incongruity. As it was she continued her two occupations, reading the verses, thinking the thoughts, until at last she came to a sudden pause, and silence reigned in the room for several minutes; then there flushed over Ester's face a sudden glow, as she realized that she sat, Bible in hand, one corner of the solemnly-worded card marking the verse at which she had paused, and that verse was: "He came unto his own, and his own received him not." And she realized that her thoughts during the silence had been: "Suppose Miss Hastings should call and should inquire for her, and she should go with Aunt Helen to return the call, should she wear mother's black lace shawl with her blue silk dress, or simply the little ruffled cape which matched the dress! She read that last verse over again, with an uncomfortable consciousness that she was not getting on very well; but try as she would, Ester's thoughts seemed resolved not to stay with that first chapter of John—they roved all over New York, visited all the places that she had seen, and a great many that she wanted to see, and that seemed beyond her grasp, going on meantime with the verses, and keeping up a disagreeable undercurrent of disgust. Over those same restless thoughts there came a tap at the door, and Maggie's voice outside.

"Miss Ried, Miss Abbie sent me to say that there was company waiting to see you, and if you please would you come down as soon as you could?"

Ester sprang up. "Very well," she responded to Maggie. "I'll be down immediately."

Then she waited to shut the card into her Bible to keep the place, took a parting peep in the mirror to see that the brown hair and blue ribbon were in order, wondered if it were really the Hastings who called on her, unlocked her door, and made a rapid passage down the stairs—most unpleasantly conscious, however, at that very moment that her intentions of setting herself right had not been carried out, and also that so far as she had gone it had been a failure. Truly, after the lapse of so many years, the light was still shining in darkness.