Through the living room at the Elms vagrant breezes entered, loitered, and drifted out again, leaving behind them scents of sun-warmed flowers.  The light there was soft and green.  The comfortable chairs invited rest; the polished rosewood table, the bright piano shining in the brightest corner, the smooth old floor in whose rug the colours had long ceased to trouble, the general air of much used comfort, satisfied and refreshed.

Esther loved the room.  Her first childish memory was of the rosewood table shining like a pool in the lamplight and of her own wondering face reflected in it, with her father’s laughing eyes behind.  In every way it was associated with the beginnings of things.  The magic of all music began for her in the sweet, thin notes of the old square piano; the key to fairy land lay hidden somewhere in that shelf of well-worn books.

Yet to-night she entered with a hesitating step.  It was obvious that she felt no pleasure in the cool greenness.  The room was the same room but it was as if the expression on a well-known face had unaccountably changed and become forbidding.  The girl sighed as she flung her hat upon a chair.

“Esther,” Jane’s voice, somewhat obscured by the eating of the promised apple, came through the open window, “are you sure about Timothy being in the Happy Hunting Grounds?”

“Of course, dear.”

“But he wasn’t what you would call a Christian, Esther?”

“He was a good dog.”

“Can Timothy chase chickens there?”

“Probably.”

“And cats?”

“Certainly cats.”

“Is that what happens to bad cats when they die?”

Esther viewed this logical picture of everlastingly pursued cats with some dismay.

“N-o.  I don’t suppose it would be real cats.”

“But Tim wouldn’t chase anything but real cats.”

“Jane, I wish you wouldn’t talk with your mouth full.”

Being thus reduced to giving up the argument or the apple, Jane abandoned the former.  It was clear that Esther was not in the mood for argument.  The child’s quick observation had not failed to note the lagging step, nor the quick sigh.  She nodded her head as if in answer to some spoken word.

“Yes, I know.  I feel like that, too.  That’s why I didn’t come in before; that’s why I’m not really in yet.  It catches you by the throat and makes you breathe funny.  What is it, Esther?”

“Why—­I don’t know, Jane.  It’s loneliness I think—­missing Dad.”

The child shook her head.  But whatever her objection might have been it was beyond her power of expression.  She slid off the veranda step and wandered back into the garden.  There was another apple in the pocket of her apron, and apples are great comforters.