The old man lighted a lantern and went round to the stable to get a trap
out. Driving through the dark country, seeing village lights shining out
of the distant solitudes, was a thrilling adventure. A peasant came like a
ghost out of the darkness; he stepped aside and called, "Good-night!"
which the old farmer answered somewhat gruffly, while Fred answered in a
ringing, cheery tone. Never had Esther spent so long and happy a day.
Everything had combined to produce a strange exaltation of the spirit in
her; and she listened to Fred more tenderly than she had done before.
The train rattled on through suburbs beginning far away in the country;
rattled on through suburbs that thickened at every mile; rattled on
through a brick entanglement; rattled over iron bridges, passed over deep
streets, over endless lines of lights.
He bade her good-bye at the area gate, and she had promised him that they
should be married in the spring. He had gone away with a light heart. And
she had run upstairs to tell her dear mistress of the happy day which her
kindness had allowed her to spend in the country. And Miss Rice had laid
the book she was reading on her knees, and had listened to Esther's
pleasures as if they had been her own.
XXV
But when the spring came Esther put Fred off till the autumn, pleading as
an excuse that Miss Rice had not been very well lately, and that she did
not like to leave her.
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