'No, I do not like it. I sometimes wish very much for one or two friends who are not here.'
There came a sigh from the bosom of the other woman, unwonted, and tale-telling, and heavy.
'My marriage warn't happy,' she said, lower than her usual tone. 'I kin manage the garden alone; and I'd jes' as lieve. Two minds about a thing makes unpeace; and I set a great deal by peace. But it's awful lonely, life is, now and then!'
'It is not that to me,' said Esther sympathizingly; she was eager to speak, and yet doubtful just what to say. She fell back upon what perhaps is the safest of all, her own experience. 'Life used to be like that to me—at one time,' she went on after a little pause. 'I was very lonely and sad, and didn't know how I could live without comfort. And then I got it; and as I got it, I think so may you.'
The woman looked at her, not in the least understanding what she would be at, yet fascinated by the sympathy—which she read plainly enough—and held by the beauty. By something besides beauty, too, which she saw without being able to fathom it. For in Esther's eyes there was the intense look of love and the fire of joy, and on her lips the loveliest lines of tenderness were trembling. Mrs. Blumenfeld gazed at her, but would almost as soon have addressed an angel, if one had stood beside her with wings that proclaimed his heavenly descent.
'I'll tell you how I got comfort,' Esther went on, keeping carefully away from anything that might seem like preaching. 'I was, as I tell you, dark and miserable and hopeless. Then I came to know the Lord Jesus; and it was just as if the sun had risen and filled all my life with sunlight.'
The woman did not remove her eyes from Esther's face. 'I want to know!' she said at last. 'I've heerd tell o' sich things;—but I never see no one afore that hed the knowledge of 'em, like you seem to hev. I've heerd parson talk.'
'This is not parson talk.'
'I see 'tain't. But what is it then? You see, I'm as stupid as a bumble bee; I don't understand nothin' without it's druv into me—unless it's my garden. Ef you ask me about cabbages, or early corn, I kin tell you. But I don't know no more'n the dead what you are talkin' of.'
Esther's eyes filled with tender tears. 'I want you to know,' she said.
'I wish you could know!'