y: 'Please come and play jack-straws with me!'"

Catherine was not pleased at the thought that her usefulness was at an
end. She had no longer a part to play unless it were that of duenna to
Esther, and for this she was not so well fitted as she might have been,
had providence thought proper to make her differently. Indeed, Esther's
anxiety to do her duty as duenna to Catherine was becoming so sharp that
it threatened to interfere with the pleasure of both. Catherine did her
best to give her friend trouble.

"Please rub me all out, Mr. Wharton," said she; "and make Esther begin
again. I am sure she will do it better the next time."

Wharton was quite ready to find an excuse for pleasing her. If it was at
times a little annoying to have two women in his way whom he could not
control as easily as ordinary work-people, he had become so used to the
restraint as not to feel it often, and not to regard it much. Esther
thought he need not distress himself by thinking that he regarded it at
all. Had not Catherine been so anxious to appear as the most docile and
obedient of hand-maids besides being the best-tempered of prairie
creatures, she would long ago have resented his habit of first petting,
then scolding, next ignoring, and again flattering her, as his mood
happened to prompt. He was more respectful with Esther, and kept out of
her way when he was moody, while she made it a rule never to leave her
own place of work unless first invited, but Catherine, who was much by
his side, got used to ill-treatment which she bore with angelic
meekness. When she found herself left forgotten in a corner, or
unanswered when she spoke, or unnoticed when she bade him good-morning,
she consoled herself with reflecting that after every rudeness,
Wharton's regard for her seemed to rise, and he took her more and more
into his confidence with every new brutality.

"Some day he will drag you to the altar by the hair," said Esther; "and
tell you that his happiness requires you to be his wife."

"I wish he would try," said Catherine with a little look of humor; "but
he has one wife already."

"She mysteriously disappeared," replied Esther. "Some day you will find
her skeleton, poor thing!"

"Do you think so?" said Catherine gravely. "How fascinating he is! He
makes me shiver!"

When Catherine begged to have every thing begun again, Wharton
hesitated. Esther's work was not to his taste, but he was not at all
sure that she would do equally