had brought her away to the castle, with her attendant Euphrosyne, she being then a child of eight.

Esther was now fifteen, but she had as yet no idea that Mr. Samson was planning in his own mind to unite her more closely to himself by making her his wife, or she would have shrunk from him even more than she did now, though she knew nothing against him, and he could never be said to have ill-treated her in any way except that he kept her a close prisoner. Perhaps he thought that, considering her age, she had liberty enough; for she was free to go from one room to another, and she could walk up and down the gallery and in the courtyard.

But though she had grown accustomed to the life now, there were times, especially when the sun shone down for a short hour or two into the dull courtyard, in spring and summer, when the girl would look up with longing eyes to the blue sky and wonder what[Pg 56] the world looked like outside the four grey walls. Sometimes she would see a bird fly past overhead, or watch a lark soaring up into the air, singing as it went. Then the past would come back to her, and she would remember a time when she had run about the green fields, and had spent long days in the garden; when she had gathered wild flowers and wood-strawberries, and had heard the birds sing.

[Pg 56]

It made her a little sad to think of it all, and for a time she felt as if she were in a cage, and wondered whether she was to spend all her life in it; but she was blessed with a cheerful disposition, and on the whole she was not unhappy. She made occupation for herself in one way and another: she sewed, she embroidered, she netted; she read the two or three books she had over and over again, and she even wrote a little. When one day Mr. Samson brought her a harp from his hoard of treasures, she was delighted indeed: and having soon managed to teach herself how to play on it, she spent many a happy evening singing such songs as she had picked up or invented for herself.

Mr. Samson liked to hear the full, clear young voice singing in the gallery, though he seldom took any apparent notice of the singer. In his way perhaps he would have missed Esther a little if she had been[Pg 57] taken from him; but he was not a kindly or affectionate personage, and the girl had no one to care for but Euphrosyne, a rather tiresome, foolish old woman, who often tried her patience a good deal with her whims and fidgets. Esther, however, was very patient with her, and clung to her simply because there was no one else to cling to.

[Pg 57]

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