Esther | Page 5

he was a common
nuisance, and that I had to work for him like a church-warden, he
laughed as though it were a joke, and seriously told me it was all right,
and he didn't mind my skepticism at all. I know he was laughing at me
this morning, when he made me go to church for the first time in ten
years to hear that sermon which not twenty people there understood."
"One always has to pay for one's friend's hobbies," said Mr. Dudley. "I
am glad he has had a success. If we keep a church we ought to do it in
the best style. What will you give me for my pew?"
"I never sat in a worse," growled Strong.
"I'll not change it then," said Mr. Dudley. "I'll make Esther use it to
mortify her pride."
"Better make it over to the poor of the parish," said the professor; "you
will get no thanks for it even from them."
Mr. Dudley laughed as though it were no affair of his, and in fact he
never sat in his pew, and never expected to do so; he had no taste for
church-going. A lawyer in moderate practice, with active interest in
public affairs, when the civil war broke out he took a commission as
captain in a New York regiment, and, after distinguishing himself, was
brought home, a colonel, with a bullet through his body and a saber cut
across his head. He recovered his health, or as much of it as a man can
expect to recover after such treatment, and went back to the law, but
coming by inheritance into a property large enough to make him
indifferent to his profession, and having an only child whose mother
was long since dead, he amused the rest of his life by spoiling this girl.
Esther was now twenty-five years old, and for fifteen years had been
absolute mistress of her father's house. Her Aunt Sarah, known in New
York as Mrs. John Murray of 53d Street, was the only person of whom
she was a little--a very little--afraid. Of her Cousin George she was not
in the least afraid, although George Strong spoke with authority in the

world when he cared to speak at all. He was rich, and his professorship
was little more to him than a way of spending money. He had no
parents, and no relations besides the Dudleys and the Murrays. Alone
in the world, George Strong looked upon himself as having in Esther a
younger sister whom he liked, and a sort of older sister, whom he also
liked, in his Aunt Sarah.
When, after lunching with the Dudleys, Professor Strong walked down
Fifth Avenue to his club, he looked, to the thousand people whom he
passed, like what he was, an intelligent man, with a figure made for
action, an eye that hated rest, and a manner naturally sympathetic. His
forehead was so bald as to give his face a look of strong character,
which a dark beard rather helped to increase. He was a popular fellow,
known as George by whole gangs of the roughest miners in Nevada,
where he had worked for years as a practical geologist, and it would
have been hard to find in America, Europe, or Asia, a city in which
some one would not have smiled at the mention of his name, and asked
where George was going to turn up next.
He kept his word that evening with his friend Hazard. At nine o'clock
he was at the house, next door to St. John's church, where the new
clergyman was trying to feel himself at home. In a large library, with
book-cases to the ceiling, and books lying in piles on the floor; with
pictures, engravings and etchings leaning against the books and the
walls, and every sort of literary encumbrance scattered in the way of
heedless feet; in the midst of confusion confounded, Mr. Hazard was
stretched on a sofa trying to read, but worn out by fatigue and
excitement. Though his chaos had not settled into order, it was easy to
read his character from his surroundings. The books were not all
divinity. There were classics of every kind, even to a collection of
Eastern literature; a mass of poetry in all languages; not a few novels;
and what was most conspicuous, an elaborate collection of illustrated
works on art, Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Medieval, Mexican, Japanese,
Indian, and whatever else had come in his way. Add to this a shelf of
music, and then--construct the tall, slender, large-eyed, thin-nosed,
dark-haired figure lying exhausted on the sofa.

He rose to greet Strong with a laugh like a boy, and cried: "Well,
skeptic, how do the heathen rage?"
"The heathen are all right," replied Strong.