'At six o'clock on Christmas eve I landed at Lisbon, where I got comfortable quarters in an English boarding-house. When I can get to London, I do not yet know. I am here at a great time, to see history as it is taking shape in human life and experience; something different from looking at it as cast into bronze or silver in former ages and packed up in a box of coins; hey, Queen Esther? But that's good too in its way. Your father will tell you the news.
'Your devoted subject,
'WILM. PITT DALLAS.'
CHAPTER XIV.
STRUGGLES.
Esther sat, swallowed up of excitement, poring over this letter, longer than she knew; whether it gave her most pain or pleasure she could not have told. Pleasure came in a great wave at first; and then pricks of pain began to make themselves felt, as if the pleasure wave had been full of sharp points. Her cheeks glowed, her eyes sent looks, or rather one steady look, at the paper, which would certainly have bored it through or set it on fire if moral qualities had taken to themselves material power. At last, remembering that she must not stay too long, she folded the letter up and returned to her father. He had taken his letter coolly, she saw, and gone back to his book. How far his world was from hers! Absolutely, Pitt's letter was nothing to him.
'Well, my dear,' said he, after a while observing her, 'what does he say?'
'I suppose he told you, papa, what happened to him?'
'No, he did not; he only told me what is happening to the world. He has gone to Europe at a grand time!'
'What is happening to the world, papa?'