that she thought must surely be the ones that the bells were ringing for, as they were all ablaze.  It had been arranged that Ester’s escort should see her safely set down at her uncle’s door, as she had been unable to state the precise time of her arrival; and besides, as she was an entire stranger to her uncle’s family, they could not determine any convenient plan for meeting each other at the depot.  So Ester was whirled through the streets at a dizzying rate, and, with eyes and ears filled with bewildering sights and sounds, was finally deposited before a great building, aglow with gas and gleaming with marble.  Mr. Newton rang the bell, and Ester, making confused adieus to him, was meantime ushered into a hall looking not unlike Judge Warren’s best parlor.  A sense of awe, not unmixed with loneliness and almost terror, stole over her as the man who opened the door stood waiting, after a civil—­“Whom do you wish to see, and what name shall I send up?”

“Whom did she wish to see, and what was her name, anyway.  Could this be her uncle’s house?  Did she want to see any of them?” She felt half afraid of them all.  Suddenly the dignity and grandeur seemed to melt into gentleness before her, as the tiniest of little women appeared and a bright, young voice broke into hearty welcome: 

“Is this really my cousin Ester?  And so you have come!  How perfectly splendid.  Where is Mr. Newton?  Gone?  Why, John, you ought to have smuggled him in to dinner.  We are so much obliged to him for taking care of you.  John, send those trunks up to my room.  You’ll room with me, Ester, won’t you?  Mother thought I ought to put you in solitary state in a spare chamber, but I couldn’t.  You see I have been so many years waiting for you, that now I want you every bit of the time.”

All this while she was giving her loving little pats and kisses, on their way up stairs, whither she at once carried the traveler.  Such a perfect gem of a room as that was into which she was ushered.  Ester’s love of beauty seemed likely to be fully gratified; she cast one eager glance around her, took in all the charming little details in a second of time, and then gave her undivided attention to this wonderful person before her who certainly was, in veritable flesh and blood, the much-dreamed over, much-longed for Cousin Abbie.  A hundred times had Ester painted her portrait—­tall and dark and grand, with a perfectly regal form and queenly air, hair black as midnight, coiled in heavy masses around her head, eyes blacker if possible than her hair.  As to dress, it was very difficult to determine; sometimes it was velvet and diamonds, or, if the season would not possibly admit of that, then a rich, dark silk, never, by any chance, a material lighter than silk.  This had been her picture.  Now she could not suppress a laugh as she noted the contrast between it and the original.  She was even two inches shorter than Ester herself, with a manner much more like a fairy’s than a queen’s; instead of heavy coils of black hair, there were little rings of brown curls clustering around a fair, pale forehead, and continually peeping over into the bluest of eyes; then her dress was the softest and quietest of muslins, with a pale-blue tint.  Ester’s softly laugh chimed merrily; she turned quickly.