"I think there is no danger, dear. But how is mother? Better?"
"Oh, yes. I don't know whether they are better or not," carelessly. "I didn't see much of mother while we were away. I played all day with Mrs. Bremner's little girl. Except when we went shopping. I think she must be better, for she did such lots of shopping."
Esther smiled. "Not very much, I think, Janie. Shopping takes money."
"But she did! I have lots and lots of new clothes. Only," discontentedly, "most of them don't fit. Mother could never be bothered trying them on. She's got some lovely things, too. Dresses and hats and piles of new shoes and heaps of silk stockings--"
"Jane, why do you say 'lots' and 'piles' and 'heaps' when you know you are exaggerating?"
But there was a note of anxiety in the reproof nevertheless.
"I'm not exaggerating, Esther! She did. Even Miss Bremner asked her what she was going to do with them all."
The elder girl's fingers tightened upon the small hand she held. Her red lips set themselves in a firm line. In face of a danger which she could see and measure Esther had courage enough. And she had faced this particular danger before.
"Mother will tell me all about it, no doubt," she said calmly. "Did she get me something pretty, too?"
"And when she got all the pretty things I suppose she told the clerks to charge them?"
"Oh, no. She paid for them out of her purse."
Esther was conscious of a swift reaction. The things were paid for. Of course Jane had exaggerated. Children have no sense of value. Some dainty things, Mrs. Coombe was sure to buy; but, as Esther well knew, her slender stock of money would hardly have run to "piles" and "heaps." And of course she had been unjust in fearing that Mary had gone into debt. They had one experience of that kind, an experience which had ended in a solemn promise that it would never happen again. Mary understood the position as well as she did.
As the girl's thought trailed naturally into the problem paths of every day, her weeks of freedom, her new interests, the strange experience in the manse garden seemed already remote. With the little frown of accustomed perplexity slipping in between her straight, black brows, her deeper agitation quieted. The unusual has no antidote so effective as the commonplace.