“Oh, how could you give her up?” exclaimed Beatrice.
“I thought I couldn’t,” returned the doctor rather glumly, “and I vowed I wouldn’t, but Miriam said to me, ‘Look at his face, can’t you see how he needs her?’ and of course in the end I had to give in. The care of a small child was really too much for Miriam. If John had not seen that, he would never have asked for her. Herrick is better off than we; he can do a great deal for Hester that we never could. While she has been growing up she has had everything that a sensible rich man’s money could give her. He built that house just for her, and, oh, he is a lonely man in it when she is away at school. She came back to stay with us when he went overseas during the war, but they surely were glad to be together again.”
“And you never knew where he came from?” the girl questioned wonderingly.
“Neither that nor what trouble drove him to our mountains. We don’t go too deep into a man’s past in the West. We like him and stand by him for what he is.”
It was quite dark now, and a white blot, moving through the dusk toward them, proved to be Mrs. Minturn’s gown, as her quiet voice presently proved.
“I am sure the doctor must have told you the history of every tree by now, even to the ones that the badgers dug up and the rows the deer nibbled. It is time you both came in.”
“Only think, she lives in the cabin where you planted the pansies,” her husband returned as he raised his long length from the bank where they had been sitting.
“Oh, did you plant them?” asked Beatrice. “I believe they were what made me love the place the first time I saw it.”
“Yes, it was I that put them there. We had been over to see Hester and I had bought a basketful of the plants in Ely, though the doctor laughed at me and said I had no room for them in the crowded garden. He was quite right, so, when Hester and I took a walk while he was talking business with John, we happened to go by the cabin and it looked so lonely that I just stopped and we planted the pansies by the steps. I am glad they are growing. And now you must come in for you need sleep, I know. As I say, the doctor loves to talk of his trees but I feel sure he has told you everything.”
“All but one thing,” Dr. Minturn said as he tucked Miriam’s arm under his and turned toward the house. “That is, that Christmas-tree Hill is to belong to Hester some day when you and I can’t enjoy it any more.”