eauty and elegance around her.
How had her prospects been blighted! Beauty there certainly was in
everything, but it was the beauty of simplicity, not at all such
a display of silks and velvets and jewels as Ester had planned. It
certainly could not be wealth which made Abbie's life such a happy
one, for she regulated her expenses with a care and forethought such
as Ester had never even dreamed of. It could not be a life of ease,
a freedom from annoyance, which kept her bright and sparkling, for it
had only taken a week's sojourn in her Aunt Helen's home to discover
to Ester the fact that all wealthy people were not necessarily amiable
and delightful. Abbie was evidently rasped and thwarted in a hundred
little ways, having a hundred little trials which _she_ had never been
called upon to endure. In short, Ester had discovered that the mere
fact of living in a great city was not in itself calculated to make
the Christian race more easy or more pleasant. She had begun to
suspect that it might not even be quite so easy as it was in a quiet
country home; and so one by one all her explanations of Abbie's
peculiar character had become bubbles, and had vanished as bubbles do.
What, then, sustained and guided her cousin? Clearly Ester was shut
up to this one conclusion--it was an ever-abiding, all-pervading
Christian faith and trust. But then had not _she_ this same faith?
And yet could any contrast be greater than was Abbie's life contrasted
with hers?

There was no use in denying it, no use in lulling and coaxing her
conscience any longer, it had been for one whole week in a new
atmosphere; it had roused itself; it was not thoroughly awake as yet,
but restless and nervous and on the alert--and _would not_ be hushed
back into its lethargic state.

This it was which made Ester the uncomfortable companion which she
was this morning. She was not willing to be shaken and roused; she
had been saying very unkind, rude things to Abbie, and now, instead
of flouncing off in an uncontrollable fit of indignation, which course
Ester could but think would be the most comfortable thing which could
happen next, so far as she was concerned, Abbie sat still, with that
look of meek inquiry on her face, humbly awaiting her verdict. How
Ester wished she had never asked that last question! How ridiculous it
would make her appear, after all that had been said, to admit that
her cousin's life had been one continual reproach of her own; that
conce