Her red
lips set themselves in a firm line. In face of a danger which she could
see and measure Esther had courage enough. And she had faced this
particular danger before.
"Mother will tell me all about it, no doubt," she said calmly. "Did she
get me something pretty, too?"
"Yes. It's a surprise."
"And when she got all the pretty things I suppose she told the clerks to
charge them?"
"Oh, no. She paid for them out of her purse."
Esther was conscious of a swift reaction. The things were paid for. Of
course Jane had exaggerated. Children have no sense of value. Some
dainty things, Mrs. Coombe was sure to buy; but, as Esther well knew,
her slender stock of money would hardly have run to "piles" and "heaps."
And of course she had been unjust in fearing that Mary had gone into
debt. They had one experience of that kind, an experience which had
ended in a solemn promise that it would never happen again. Mary
understood the position as well as she did.
As the girl's thought trailed naturally into the problem paths of every
day, her weeks of freedom, her new interests, the strange experience in
the manse garden seemed already remote.
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