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ESTHER TERRALL’S EXPERIMENT
By MRS. ODESSA S. PA YNE: Author of "Psyche, ” "The Sacrifice, ” "Hol? Past End Was Redeemed. ”
HL
RS. JUNE WEBB came out of the
parlor, as Esther ran up the steps.
“What do you think of your fairy
god mother?” she queried in an in
terested tone. “How do you like her?”
“She is original and sincere, I
think,” Esther replied, “but as Lane
-would say —of the Lion’s breed. You
should have seen her face when I
O *
hinted at references.”
“Angels and ministers of grace,” Mrs. Webb
responded, laying her hand on the young girl’s
shoulders, “you did not dare! Why, she gave this
magnificent building to the Y. AV. C. A., and she
is the principal patroness of half the charities in
the city.”
“Well, I didn’t know it,” Esther answered.
“How could I? So you think that it would be all
right for me to go to England with her 1 ’ ’
“To the world’s end, Miss Ferrall,” the matron
answered, gravely.
Esther pulled off her long gloves.
“Thank you,” she said, with a graceful imita
tion of the grand dame manner, “the reference, I
believe, is sufficient.”
Mrs. Webb applauded: “You are a fortunate
girl, Miss Fen-all, and if you want Margaret Car
rington’s fortune, you can get it, I am sure, though
just at present it is willed to the Y. W. C. A.”
They both laughed, but long afterward, Esther
remembered her reply so lightly spoken.
“I promise you not to accept it; and though she
should implore me with tears in her eyes, I will re
main obdurate.”
Mrs. Webb dismissed her with a graceful gesture.
“Go! Say your prayers or dream, but be sure
you are ready for my two o’clock dinner, little
girl. ’ ’
Esther’s eyes filled suddenly with tears.
“Do you know,” she said, impulsively, “that
you are the right woman in the right place, Mrs.
Webb? And that the only reason this strenuous,
on-moving city life has not filled me with ceaseless
fear, has been you, and this dear old house, which
radiates with the -warmth of your big heart, ‘ pret
ty nearly, continually all the time,’ as Betsy Ham
ilton says.”
Esther ran lightly up the grand stair-way, sing
ing in her wonderful voice:
“Bedelia, I’d like to steal you ,
I love you so.”
Mrs. Webb laughed with dewy eyes, as the sil
very accents floated down from the upper hall.
“How we shall miss her! The whole house will
seem desolate. For. as my old French teacher
used to say: ‘She has charm, mam’selle, charm.’ ”
True to her word, Mrs. Carrington called Esther
up that night, and asked her if she could get ready
to leave the city within the next ten days.
“I could, easily,” Esther replied, “except that
I should like to run down to Ferrall Hall and tell
my mother and brother good-bye.”
“Well, I’ll send you a check for your traveling
suit in the morning, and you can go down Friday
afternoon for the leave-taking. But you must be
back bright and early Monday morning, so that
we can take our departure on the New York Ex
press at four o’clock. Will that suit you, Miss
Ferrall ? ’ ’
“Admirably, thank you.”
“Be sure,” said the imperious voice of the old
lady, “to get yourself a becoming traveling suit,
for somebody might take you for my daughter,
and I want you to look the part. And there is
just one other condition: you must put on a smile
that won’t come off until we get back, do you
hear ? ’’
Esther laughed.
“My dear Mrs. Carrington, be merciful. An au
tomatic idiot would not make a very desirable
The Golden Age for January 16, ltoß.
traveling companion, in my estimation. However,
I’ll do my-best.”
“Thank you. Be sure and say your prayers to
night, for when I get you away from all your
friends, I’ll pay you back for the score you gave
me today, young lady.”
“Oh, I beg your pardon,” Esther answered in
a tone of sweetest penitence, “you were an entire
stranger, and this is such a big city—forgive me.”
“Dear little girl,” the full mellow voice re
turned, “as I hope to be forgiven. Tell your
mother that Margaret Carrington never betrayed a
trust, and that big brother of yours, whom you
worship, that I will have a portrait of you painted
in a court dress and give him for a Christmas pres
ent if he will lift the mortgage from Ferrall Hall,
by the time -we return from our wanderings. Yes,
I know some of your friends, else I would have
required references —spelled with a big R, too.
Good-night. ’ ’
The next mail brought Esther a check for SIOO.
She looked at the bold signature. She felt the
fairy wand was beginning to wave, and she studied
it with thoughtful eyes; the wand that was to
change her destiny and her world, in ways of which
she did not even have the data to dream.
Esther preferred to make most of her purchases
in New York. But she stood sufficiently in awe of
her patroness to invest in a dark brown traveling
suit, with a hat to match, trimmed richly in silk
of the same shade, which -was relieved by tan and
brown-colored roses, and feathers of the same vary
ing hue.
She bought a volume of Frank Stanton’s poems
for her brother; a pair of dainty grey kid gloves
for her mother, and a remembrance for each one of
her special friends in the Home. She gave Mrs.
Webb a black chiffon cuff. Mary Hayden was given
“The Wheel of Life,” and Beulah Land was pre
sented with a beautiful devotional calendar, illus
trated with timely texts for daily use. She piled
all her personal belongings on the little white iron
bed, the evening after her conversation with Mrs.
Carrington, and packed her trunk with a radiant
face, until she came to a white lace dress that she
had worn only once to the marriage of a girl friend.
Her tears fell among the soft folds as she laid it
down gently, in the open-meshed tray. For she re
membered that there had been no money in the
Ferrall exchequer at the time, but her mother had
been very glad to sacrifice some of her jewels, so
that her daughter might not miss the pleasure of
the occasion.
“Dear little mother,” Esther said, in a tender,
reflective tone, “she spends her days in service,
and her evenings in reading. I will subscribe for
a half-dozen magazines for her before I leave the
States. When I reach Europe I’ll send her a box of
curios, that will delight her artistic soul.”
The next afternoon, after Esther was dressed for
her departure, she tied a blue ribbon in a double
bow around the receiver of her telephone. Crossing
her hands on the unresponsive mouthpiece, she said
with a tremor in her rare, musical voice:
“Here ends the first chapter of my ’phone ro
mance. For all your kindness to a lonely little
girl, Sir Galahad, thanks, and adieu.”
She went down stairs to the matron’s room with
a grave face to tell her “good-bye.”
“You look so much like a duchess,” Mrs. Webb
declared, “in that lovely new suit, that I am posi
tively afraid to kiss you. Still, I’ll risk it for the
sake of old times. God bless you, Esther.”
Esther’s trip home along the familiar line of
railway proved a restful experience, after the stren
uous rush of the days which had preceded it. TJie
long gray stretch of woods and brown and sere
meadows were relieved by the stops at the growing
and popular towns along the way, where the sta
tion parks were gay with red and yellow chrysan
themums, behind the green hedge rows and box
wood bordered beds.
The glimpses of life in front of the brick stores,
where some young farmers lolled aloft on the cot
ton bales with which their wagons were loaded
down; the men and women on the sidewalks, with
here and there a childish face, blossoming between
their figures. And farther on the vine-wound cot
tages clustering gracefully along the street; the
more pretentious houses set back In the seclusion
of their own grounds. And afterwards, miles of
forest and field, with now and then a log cabin in
the open, or a grave yard to shade picturesquely
the gliding panorama. What a world of change—
how like life, so complex and incomprehensible, at
times; so beautiful and harmonious at others. And
always the rushing tide was onward toward “some
far-off divine event” somewhere —and she was only
an atom of humanity adrift on the current. Where
would it all end ? Amid the mansions of the
eternal city, or in the dreamless annihilation of the
dead.
So many of her young friends had joined the
silent majority; where were they now? Had the
Master of Life met them face to face when they
had crossed the bar, or had they been exiled from
His presence forever? She believed that the pos
session of the Spirit of Love would be the final test
at the gates of life; and she wondered if she really
loved her neighbor at all. Then her heart gave a
great exultant throb. She thought of Beulah Land,
and the night she had given her, all without a mo
ment’s hesitation, or a single selfish reservation,
her position at the glove counter in order to save
her. No, when she was tested, she did not love
herself best, and the crisis which had come to a
poor little shop girl, had been the fire which had
revealed the hidden gold of her own heart.
Lane Ferrall met his sister at the depot. He
greeted her affectionately, but she was evidently in
a thoughtful mood. The old surrey had been reno
vated; there was a new fringe around the top, yel
low wheels and luxuriant brown cushions, all drawn
by the one thorough-bred horse of the Ferrall sta
bles. “Dixie” carried a high head, and touched
the ground with disdainful hoofs. The young mas
ter of Ferrall Hall had his hands full for the first
half mile, but soon they had left the town behind
and were driving up a long hill, from which the
sweep of field and forest was unrolled to the red
line of the western horizon.
“This atmosphere invigorates like wine,” Esther
exclaimed, “and the perfume of the wild grape
makes me feel like I had happened upon one of the
Magna Mater’s banquets.”
“You have,” Lane replied in the philosophic
tone he often used. “Nature keeps a perpetual
table spread for those who love her. And talk
about color schemes, what could be more lovely or
gorgeous than that maple tree?” And he pointed
with his whip at the object designated.
“God’s great out-of-doors,” he continued, “is
the heavenliest panacea for those who have grown
heart-weary of the struggle.”
“You mean life?” Esther queried quickly.
“Evidently,” he answered, “and, perhaps, I
mean incidentally, that I am not very happy over
the thought of your leaving home.”
“Why should you care?” Esther asked in a
meditative voice. “Mother makes a charming com
panion, as I can testify from years of experience.
And, besides, the business connected with the run
ning of the plantation will leave you but little lei
sure for regret.”
“Certainly not,” Lane replied with emphasis on
the negative, “if I rise to the great emergency.
But how the mater and you have avoided bank
ruptcy in the past is more than I can compre
hend.”
“Well, it was not always a simple process,”
Esther said reflectively. “But the mater, when she
is roused, is not easily defeated. She is better
than the daughter of a hundred belted earls in a
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