"Very well," was Carrie's response; but I could see she was
displeased with my plain speaking; and I went downstairs very tired
and dispirited, to find mother had cried herself into a bad headache.

"If I could only talk to your dear father about it," she whispered,
when she had opened her heart to me on the subject of Carrie. "I am
old-fashioned, as Carrie says, and it is still my creed that parents
know best for their children; but she thinks differently, and she is
so good that, perhaps, one ought to leave her to judge for herself.
If I could only know what your father would say," she went on,
plaintively.

I could give her no comfort, for I was only a girl myself, and my
opinions were still immature and unfledged, and then I never had been
as good as Carrie. But what I said seemed to console mother a little,
for she drew down my face and kissed it.

"Always my good, sensible Esther," she said, and then Uncle Geoffrey
came in and prescribed for the headache, and the subject dropped.




CHAPTER IX.

THE CEDARS.


I was almost ashamed of myself for being so happy, and yet it was a