e next day,
what was to be done? Expenses must not outrun incomings; that was a
fixed principle in Esther's mind, resting as well on honour as honesty.
Evidently, when the latter do not cover the former, one of two things
must be done; expenses must be lessened, or income increased. How to
manage the first, Esther had failed to find; and she hated the idea,
besides, of a penny-ha'penny economy. Could their incomings be added
to? By teaching! It flashed into Esther's mind with a disagreeable
illumination. Yes, that she could do, that she must do, if her father
would not go back to Seaforth. There was no other way. He could not
earn money; she must. If they continued to live in or near New York, it
must be on her part as a teacher in a school. The first thought of it
was not pleasant. Esther was tempted to wish they had never left
Seaforth, if the end of it was to be this. But after the first start of
revulsion she gathered herself together. It would put an end to all
their difficulties. It would be honourable work, and good work; and,
after all, _work_ in some sort is what everybody should have; nobody is
put here to be idle. Perhaps this pressure of circumstances was on
purpose to push her into the way that was meant for her; the way in
which it was the Lord's pleasure she should serve Him and the world.
And having got this view of it, Esther's last reluctance was gone. For,
you see, what was the Lord's pleasure was also hers.

Her heart grew quite light again. She saw what she had to do. But for
the first, the thing was, to go as far in her learning as her father
desired her to go. She must finish her own schooling. And if Esther had
studied hard before, she studied harder now; applied herself with all
the power of her will to do her utmost in every line. It was not a
vague thought of satisfying Pitt Dallas that moved her now; but a very
definite purpose to take care of her father, and a ready joy to do the
will of Him whom Esther loved even better than her father.

The thought of Pitt Dallas, indeed, went into abeyance. Esther had
something else to do. And the summer had passed and he had not come;
that hope was over; and two years more must go by, according to the
plan which Esther knew, before he would come again. Before that time,
who could tell? Perhaps he would have forgotten them entirely.

It happened one day, putting some drawers in order, that Esther took up
an old book and carelessly opened it. Its leaves