fell apart at a place
where there lay a dry flower. It was the sprig of red Cheiranthus; not
faded; still with its velvety petals rich tinted, and still giving
forth the faint sweet fragrance which belongs to the flower. It gave
Esther a thrill. It was the remaining fragment of Pitt's Christmas
bouquet, which she had loved and cherished to the last leaf as long as
she could. She remembered all about it. Her father had made her burn
all the rest; this blossom only had escaped, without her knowledge at
the time. The sight of it went to her heart. She stood still by her
chest of drawers with the open book in her hand, gazing at the
wallflower in its persistent beauty. All came back to her: Seaforth,
her childish days, Pitt and her love for him, and his goodness to her;
the sorrow and the joy of that old time; and more and more the dry
flower struck her heart. Why had her father wanted her to burn the
others? why had she kept this? And what was the use of keeping it now?
When anything, be it a flower, be it a memory, which has been fresh and
sweet, loses altogether its beauty and its savour, what is the good of
still keeping it to look at? Truly the flower had not lost either
beauty or savour; but the memory that belonged to it? what had become
of that? Pitt let himself no more be heard from; why should this little
place-keeper be allowed to remain any longer? Would it not be wiser to
give it up, and let the wallflower go the way of its former companions?
Esther half thought so; almost made the motion to throw it in the fire;
but yet she could not. She could not quite do it. Maybe there was an
explanation; perhaps Pitt would come next time, when another two years
had rolled away, and tell them all about it. At any rate, she would
wait.

She shut up the book again carefully, and put it safely away.

CHAPTER XXVII.

_ONIONS_.

It seemed very inexplicable to Esther that Pitt was never heard from.
Not a scrap of a letter had they had from him since they came to New
York. Mr. Dallas, the elder, had written once or twice, mostly on
business, and said nothing about his son. That was all. Mrs. Dallas
never wrote. Esther would have been yet more bewildered if she had
known that the lady had been in New York two or three times, and not
merely passing through, but staying to do shopping. Happily she had no
suspicion of this.

One day, late in the autumn, Christopher Bounder went over to Mrs.
Blumenfeld's garden. It lay