"I was expecting you, Miss Cameron," she said, in such a sweet tone
that it quite won my heart. "Your uncle kindly promised to introduce
us to each other."

And then she looked at me, not keenly and scrutinizingly, as her
brother had done, but with a kindly inquisitiveness, as though she
wanted to know all about me, and to put me at my ease as soon as
possible. I flushed a little at that, and my unfortunate
sensitiveness took alarm. If it were only Carrie, I thought, with her
pretty face and soft voice; but I was so sadly unattractive, no one
would be taken with me at first sight. Fred had once said so in my
hearing, and how I had cried over that speech!

"Esther looks older than she is; but she is only seventeen,"
interposed Uncle Geoffrey, as he saw that unlucky blush. "She is a
good girl, and very industrious, and her mother's right hand," went
on the simple man. If I only could have plucked up spirit and
contradicted him, but I felt tongue-tied.

"She looks very reliable," returned Miss Lucas, in the kindest way.
To this day I believe she could not find any compliment compatible
with truth. I once told her so months afterward, when we were very
good friends, and she laughed and could not deny it.

"You were frowning so, Esther," she replied, "from excess of
nervousness, I believe, that your forehead was quite lost in your
hair, and your great eyes were looking at me in such a funny,
frightened way, and the corners of your mouth all coming down, I
thought you were five-and-twenty at least, and wondered what I was to