It was astonishing how few
lies were necessary. After all, people exaggerated the
difficulty of life. A little steering, just a touch of the
rudder now and then, and with a willing listener there is no
limit to the domain of equivocal speech. Sometimes Miss
M'Glashan made a freezing sojourn in the parlour; and then
the task seemed unaccountably more difficult; but to Esther,
who was all eyes and ears, her face alight with interest, his
stream of language flowed without break or stumble, and his
mind was ever fertile in ingenious evasions and -
What an afternoon it was for Esther!
'Ah!' she said at last, 'it's good to hear all this! My
aunt, you should know, is narrow and too religious; she
cannot understand an artist's life. It does not frighten
me,' she added grandly; 'I am an artist's daughter.'
With that speech, Dick consoled himself for his imposture;
she was not deceived so grossly after all; and then if a
fraud, was not the fraud piety itself? - and what could be
more obligatory than to keep alive in the heart of a daughter
that filial trust and honour which, even although misplaced,
became her like a jewel of the mind? There might be another
thought, a shade of cowardice, a selfish desire to please;
poor Dick was merely human; and what would you have had him
do?
CHAPTER IV - ESTHER ON THE FILIAL RELATION
A MONTH later Dick and Esther met at the stile beside the
cross roads; had there been any one to see them but the birds
and summer insects, it would have been remarked that they met
after a different fashion from the day before.
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