'Drawing, and music, and some English branches.'
'Do you like it?'
She hesitated. 'I am very thankful to have it to do. I do not fancy that teaching for money is just the same as teaching for pleasure. But I am very glad to be able to do it. Before that, there was a time when I did not know just what was going to become of us. Now I am very happy.'
Pitt could not at the moment speak all his thoughts. Moreover, there was something about Esther that perplexed him. She was so unmovedly quiet in her manner. It was kind, no doubt, and pleasant, and pleased; and yet, there was a smooth distance between him and her that troubled him. He did not know how to get rid of it. It was so smooth, there was nothing to take hold of; while it was so distant, or put her rather at such a distance, that all Pitt's newly aroused feelings were stimulated to the utmost, both by the charm and by the difficulty. How exquisite was this soft dignity and calm! but to the man who was longing to be permitted to clasp his arms round her it was somewhat aggravating.
'What has become of Christopher?' he asked after a pause.
'Oh, Christopher is happy!' said Esther, with a smile that was only too frank and free. Pitt wished she would have shown a little embarrassment or consciousness. 'Christopher is happy. He has become a householder and a market-gardener, and, above all, a married man. Married a market-gardener's widow, and set up for himself.'
'What do you do without him?'
'Oh, we could not afford him now,' said Esther, with another smile. 'It was very good for us, almost as good for us as for him. Christopher has become a man of substance. We hire this house of him, or rather of his wife.'
'Are the two not one, then?'
Esther laughed. 'Yes,' she said; 'but you know, which one it is depends on circumstances.'