their poor relations. The Miss Vernon-Ridgways looked out behind their curtains watching closely. How fine it is to be young and rich and beautiful and on the top of the wave! With what admiration all your dependents look upon you. Everyone in the Vernonry was breathless with excitement when Harry took the reins and the groom left the horses’ heads, and the phaeton wheeled round. The little boys at the gate scattered as it wheeled out, the small Vernons vindicating their gentility and relationship by standing straight in the way of the horses. And with what a whirl and dash they turned round the sweep of the road, and disappeared from the longing view! Mildmay Vernon who had taken such trouble to get a glance from them crossed over to the door of the verandah where
Mrs. John, with the streamers of her cap blowing about her, and her mind as much disturbed as her capstrings, stood still breathless watching the departure. “Well,” he said, “so you’ve had the Prince and Princess in all their grandeur.”
Mrs. John had to take a moment to collect herself before she could even make out what he had said. As for Hester, she was so dazzled by this visit, her head and her heart so beating and throbbing, that she was incapable of putting up with the conversation which always made her wicked. She ran away, leaving her mother at the door, and flew to her own room to recollect all that had passed, and to go over it again and again as lovers do. She put her hands over her eyes and lived over again that moment, and every detail of Cousin Ellen’s appearance and every word she had said. The jingle of her chains and trinkets seemed to Hester like silver bells, a pretty individualism and sign of her presence. If she went into a dark room or if you were blind, Hester thought, you would know by that that it was she. And the regal colour of her dress, and the black lace of her bonnet all puffed about those wonderful light locks, and her dainty shoes and her delicate gloves, and everything about her! “A long, long day,” and “You may count upon me, Hester.” Was it possible that a creature so dazzling, so triumphant, had spoken such words to her? Her heart was more elated than it had ever been before in her life. And as for the work which she had made up her mind to do, for the first time it seemed possible and feasible. Cousin Ellen would arrange it for her. She was far too much excited and awed to be able to laugh at the mistake Cousin Ellen had made in her haste about buying a
cours for Hester, not knowing in the least what it meant. In this way with all sincerity the dazzled worshippers of greatness lose their perception of the ridiculous in the persons of those who have seized upon their imaginations. Hester would have been revolted and angered had anyone noted this ludicrous particular in the conversation. Through the open window the girl heard the voices of her mother and the neighbours, now including the sharp voice of Miss Vernon-Ridgway, and the sound made her heart rise with a kind of indignant fury. They would discuss her as if they had any understanding of such a creature, as if they knew what they were speaking about! they, old, poor, spiteful as they were, and she so beautiful, so young, so splendid, and so kind. “The kindness was the chief thing,” Hester said to herself, putting her fingers in her ears not to hear the ill-nature downstairs. Oh, of course, they would be taking her to pieces, pouring their gall upon her! Hester felt that youth and happiness were on her own side as against the envious and old and poor.
For days after she looked in vain for the reappearance of that heavenly vision, every morning getting up with the conviction that by noon at least it would appear, every afternoon making up her mind that the dullness of the lingering hours would be brightened by the sound, the flash, the wind of rapid movement, the same delightful voice, the perfumed fair cheek, the jingle of the golden caparisons. Every day Mrs. John said, first cheerfully, then querulously, “I wonder if they will come for you today.” When it began to dawn upon Hester at last that they were not coming, the sense of deception which came over her was, in some sort, like the pangs of death. She stood still, in her very being astounded, unable to understand what had happened. They were not coming again. Her very heart stood still, and all the wheels of her existence in a blank pause like death. When they began to move again reluctantly, hoarsely, Hester felt too sick and faint for any conscious comment upon what had happened. She could not bear the commentary which she was almost forced to hear, and which she thought would kill her—the “Poor child! so you’ve been expecting Ellen Vernon?” which Miss Matilda next door said to her with an insulting laugh, almost drove her frantic. And not much less aggravating to the sensitive girl were her mother’s frequent wonderings what could have become of them, whether Ellen could be ill, what had happened. “They said they would come and fetch you to spend a day with them, didn’t they? Then why don’t they come, Hester?—why don’t they come?” the poor lady said. Hester’s anger and wretchedness and nervous irritation were such that she could almost have struck her mother. Was it right, in addition to her own disappointment, that she should have this question thrust upon her, and that all the pangs of her first disenchantment should be discussed by contemptuous spectators? This terrible experience, which seemed to Hester to be branded upon her as by red-hot irons, made a woman of her
