'Is England so much better than America, papa?'
'It is England, my dear!' the colonel said, with an expression which meant, she could not tell what.
CHAPTER XV.
COMFORT.
These letters, on the whole, did not comfort Esther. The momentary intense pleasure was followed by inevitable dull reaction and contrast; and before she had well got over the effect of one batch of letters another came; and she was kept in a perpetual stir and conflict. For Pitt proved himself a good correspondent, although it was June before the first letter from his parents reached him. So he reported, writing on the third of that month; and told that the Allied Sovereigns were just then leaving Paris for a visit to the British Capital, and all the London world was on tiptoe. 'Great luck for me to be here just now,' he wrote; and so everybody at home agreed. Mrs. Dallas grew more stately, Esther thought, with every visit she made at the colonel's house; and she and her husband made many. It was a necessity to have some one to speak to about Pitt and Pitt's letters; and it was urgent likewise that Mrs. Dallas should know if letters had been received by the same mail at this other house. She always found out, one way or another; and then she would ask, 'May I see?' and scan with eager eyes the sheet the colonel generally granted her. Of the letters to Esther nothing was said, but Esther lived in fear and trembling that some inadvertent word might let her know of their existence.
Another necessity which brought the Dallases often to Colonel Gainsborough's was the political situation. They could hardly discuss it with anybody else in Seaforth, and what is the use of a political situation if you cannot discuss it? All the rest of the families in the neighbourhood were strong Americans; and even Pitt, in his letters, was more of an American than anything else. Indeed, so much more, that it gave his mother sad annoyance. He told of the temper of the English people at this juncture; of the demands to be made by the English government before they would hear of peace; of a strong force sent to Canada, and the general indignant and belligerent tone of feeling and speech among members of Parliament; but Pitt did not write as if he sympathized with it. 'He has lived here too long already!' sighed his mother.
'Not if he is destined to live here the rest of his life, my dear madam,' said the colonel.
'He will not do that. He will end by settling in England.'
'Will may have his own views, on that as on some other things.'
'By the time he has gone through the University and studied for his profession, he will be more of an Englishman than of an American,' Mr. Dallas observed contentedly. 'He will choose for himself.'