'She is accustomed to the want now.'
'Mother, it isn't kind of you!'
'How would you have me show kindness?' Mrs. Dallas asked calmly. Now that Pitt was going away and safe, she could treat the matter without excitement. 'What would Colonel Gainsborough like me to do for his daughter, do you think?'
Pitt was silent, and vexed.
'What do you want me to do for her?'
'I'd like you to be a friend to her. She will need one.'
'If her father dies, you mean?'
'If he lives. She will be very lonely when I am gone away.'
'That is because you have accustomed her so much to your company. I never thought it was wise. She will get over it in a little while.'
Would she? Pitt studied her next day, and much doubted his mother's assertion. All the months of his last term in college had not been enough to weaken in the least Esther's love for him. It was real, honest, genuine love, and of very pure quality; a diamond, he was ready to think, of the first water. Only a child's love; but Pitt had too fine a nature himself to despise a child's love; and full as his head was of novelties, hopes and plans and purposes, there was space in his heart for a very tender concern about Esther beside.