lance and breathed a
breath of relief. At length the crisis was past and she had only to save
the girl from brooding over her pain. Without waiting for an
explanation, she plunged into the torrent of Esther's woes.

"Mr. Murray and I are going to Niagara by the night train. I want you
and Catherine to go with us."

"You are an angel!" answered Esther. "Did Catherine tell you how I
wanted to run away! You knew it would be so? I will go any where; the
further the better; but how can I drag you and poor Uncle John away from
town at this season? Can't I go off alone with Catherine?"

"Nonsense!" said her aunt briefly. "I shall be glad to get away from New
York. I am tired of it. Get your trunks packed! Put in your sketching
materials, and we will pick you up at eight o'clock. George shall come
on to-morrow and pass Sunday with us."

Esther thanked her aunt with effusion. "I am going to show you how well
I can behave. Uncle John shall not know that any thing is the matter
with me unless you tell him. I won't be contemptible, even if I have got
red eyes."

Not five minutes were needed to decide on the new departure. Esther and
Catherine found relief and amusement in the bustle of preparation. If
Esther was still a little feverish and excited, she was able to throw it
off in work. She was no longer an object of pity; it was her uncle and
aunt who deserved deepest compassion. What worse shock was possible for
an elderly, middle-aged New York lawyer than to return to his house at
six o'clock and find that he is to have barely time for his dinner and
cigar before being thrust out into the cold and hideous darkness of a
February night, in order to travel some four hundred miles through a
snow-bound country? It is true that he had received some little warning
to arrange his affairs for an absence over Saturday, but at best the
blow was a severe one, and he bore it with a silent fortitude which
wrung his wife's heart. She was a masterful mistress, but she was good
to those who obeyed, and she even showed the weakness of begging him not
to go, although in her soul she knew that he must.

"After all, John, you needn't go with us. I can take the girls alone."

"As I understand it, you have engaged my professional services," he
replied. "On the whole I prefer prevention to cure. I would rather help
Esther to run away, than get her a divorce."

"When I am dead, you shall stay quietly at home and be perfectly happy,"
she answered