CHAPTER XXXII.
Dear Old Ess again.
Let us visit once more the room from which Mr.Walters and his friends made so brave a defence.

There is but little in its present appearance to remind one of that eventful night,--no reminiscences of that desperate attack, save the bullet-hole in the ceiling, which Mr.Walters declares shall remain unfilled as an evidence of the marked attention he has received at the hands of his fellow-citizens.
There are several noticeable additions to the furniture of the apartment; amongst them an elegantly-carved work-stand, upon which some unfinished articles of children's apparel are lying; a capacious rocking-chair, and grand piano.
Then opposite to the portrait of Toussaint is suspended another picture, which no doubt holds a higher position in the regard of the owner of the mansion than the African warrior aforesaid.

It is a likeness of the lady who is sitting at the window,--Mrs.Esther Walters, _nee_ Ellis.

The brown baby in the picture is the little girl at her side,--the elder sister of the other brown baby who is doing its best to pull from its mother's lap the doll's dress upon which she is sewing.

Yes, that is "dear old Ess," as Charlie calls her yet, though why he will persist in applying the adjective we are at a loss to determine.
Esther looks anything but old--a trifle matronly, we admit--but old we emphatically say she is not; her hair is parted plainly, and the tiniest of all tiny caps sits at the back of her head, looking as if it felt it had no business on such raven black hair, and ought to be ignominiously dragged off without one word of apology.