At last she arose and came toward the Doctor, with a strange sweetness
playing about her mouth, and a strange calm in her voice.
"Dr. Van Anden, I am _so_ much obliged to you. Don't be afraid to
leave me now. I think I need to be quite alone."
And the Doctor, feeling that all words were vain and useless, silently
bowed, and softly let himself out of the room.
The first thing upon which Ester's eye alighted when she turned again
to the table was the letter in which she had been writing those last
words: "Why life isn't half long enough for the things that I want
to do." Very quietly she picked up the letter and committed it to the
glowing coals upon the grate. Her mood had changed. By degrees, very
quietly and very gradually, as such bitter things _do_ creep in upon a
family, it grew to be an acknowledged fact that Ester was an invalid.
Little by little her circle of duties narrowed, one by one her various
plans were silently given up, the dear mother first, and then
Sadie, and finally the children, grew into the habit of watching her
footsteps, and saving her from the stairs, from the lifting, from
every possible burden. Once in a long while, and then, as the weeks
passed, more frequently, there would come a day in which she did not
get down further than the little sitting-room, but was established
amid pillows on the couch, "enjoying poor health," as she playfully
phrased it.
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