Even then she
bethought herself to take a curious parting look at the oddly matched
couple who were carefully making their way through the crowd, and
wonder if she would ever see them again.
The next hour was made up of bewilderment to Ester. She had a confused
remembrance afterward of floating across a silver river in a palace;
of reaching a place where everybody screamed instead of talked, and
where all the bells were ringing for fire, or something else. She
looked eagerly about for her uncle, and saw at least fifty men who
resembled him, as she saw him last, about ten years ago. She fumbled
nervously for his address in her pocket-book, and gave Mr. Newton
a recipe for making mince pies instead; finally she found herself
tumbled in among cushions and driving right into carriages and carts
and people, who all got themselves mysteriously out of the way; down
streets 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.
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