r got more
pleasure out of it than the children did. Here a crowd of little
invalids, playing on the yellow floor or lying on couches, were always
waiting to be amused and longing to be noticed, and thought themselves
ill-treated if at least one of the regular visitors did not appear every
day to hear of their pains and pleasures. Esther's regular task was to
tell them a story, and, learning from experience that she could double
its effect by illustrating it, she was in the custom of drawing, as she
went on, pictures of her kings and queens, fairies, monkeys and lions,
with amiable manners and the best moral characters. Thus drawing as she
talked, the story came on but slowly, and spread itself over weeks and
months of time.

On this Saturday afternoon Esther was at her work in the play-room,
surrounded by a dozen or more children, with a cripple, tortured by
hip-disease, lying at her side and clinging to her skirt, while a proud
princess, with red and white cheeks and voluminous robes, was making
life bright with colored crayons and more highly colored adventures,
when the door opened and Esther saw the Rev. Stephen Hazard, with her
aunt, Mrs. Murray, on the threshold.

Mr. Hazard was not to blame if the scene before him made a sudden and
sharp picture on his memory. The autumn sun was coming in at the
windows; the room was warm and pleasant to look at; on a wide brick
hearth, logs of hickory and oak were burning; two tall iron fire-dogs
sat up there on their hind legs and roasted their backs, animals in
which the children were expected to take living interest because they
had large yellow glass eyes through which the fire sparkled; with this,
a group of small invalids whose faces and figures were stamped with the
marks of organic disease; and in the center--Esther!

Mr. Hazard had come here this afternoon partly because he thought it his
duty, and partly because he wanted to create closer relations with a
parishioner so likely to be useful as Mrs. Murray. He was miserable with
a cold, and was weak with fatigue. His next sermon was turning out dull
and disjointed. His building committee were interfering and quarreling
with Wharton. A harsh north-west wind had set his teeth on edge and
filled his eyes with dust. Rarely had he found himself in a less
spiritual frame of mind than when he entered this room. The contrast was
overwhelming. When Esther at first said quite decidedly that nothing
would induce her to go on wi