The hot, dreamy days rose and sank in Yrndale. Hester would wake in the morning oppressed with the feeling that there was something she ought to have begun long ago, and must positively set about this new day. Then as her inner day cleared, she would afresh recognize her duty as that of those who stand and wait. She had no great work to do—only the common family duties of the day, and her own education for what might be the will of Him who, having made her for something, would see that the possibility of that something should not be wanting.

In the heat of the day she would seek a shady spot with a book for her companion. Under the shadow of some rock, the tent-roof of some great beech tree, or the solemn gloom of some pine grove, the brooding spirit of the summer would day after day find her when the sun was at the height of his great bridge and fill her with a sense of repose. Then would such a quiescence pervade Hester’s spirit, such a sweet spiritual sleep creep over her, that nothing seemed required of her but to live—mere existence was conscious wellbeing. On and off, however, she would he haunted with a vague sense of guilt at enjoying the leisure, but then faith would rouse itself and say: “But God will take care of you in this thing, too. You do not have to watch lest he should forget, only be ready when he gives the lightest call. You have to keep listening.”

Every evening Hester would regularly sit at her piano, which had by then arrived. There, through all the sweet atmospheric changes of the brain—for the brain has its morning and evening, its summer and winter as well as the day and the year—she would meditate aloud. And, oftener than she knew, especially in the twilight when the days had grown shorter, Mark would be somewhere in the dusk listening to her, a lurking cherub, feeding on her music—sometimes ascending on its upward torrent to a solitude where only God would find him.

Occasionally a thought of Vavasor would come, but chiefly as one who would be a welcome helper in her work. And when for a time she had had enough of music, she would softly close her piano as she would have covered a child, and glide into the night to wander about through the gloom without conscious choice. At such times she would think what it would be to have a man for a friend, one who would strengthen her heart and make her bold to do what was needful and right.