Hester

afternoon air had not a breath to move it. Hester said to herself that nothing more would happen now. She knew the afternoon atmosphere, the approach of tea, the scent of it in the air, the less ethereal bread-and-butter, and then the long dull evening. It seemed endless to look forward, as if it never would be night. And Mrs. John, as soon as the fly was out of sight, had drawn her chair towards the fire and begun to talk. “I am sure I am very sorry he has gone,” Mrs. John said. “I did not think I should have liked him at first, but I declare I like him very much now. How long is it since he came, Hester? Only a fortnight! I should have said three weeks at least. I think it was quite unnatural of the captain to talk of him as he did, for I am sure he is a very nice young man. Where are you going? not I hope for one of your long walks: for the night closes in very early now, and it will soon be time for tea.”

“Don’t you think, mamma,” said Hester, somewhat hypocritically, “that it would be kind to go in and keep Mrs. Morgan company a little, as she will be quite alone?”

“That is always your way as soon as I show any inclination for a little talk,” said her mother provoked, not without reason. Then she softened, being at heart the most good-natured of women. “Perhaps you are right,” she said, “the old lady will be lonely. Give her my love, and say I should have come to see her myself, but that⁠—” Mrs. John paused for a reason, “but that I am afraid for my neuralgia,” she added triumphantly. “You know how bad it was the other day.”

Thus sanctioned Hester threw her grey “cloud” round her, and ran round to console Mrs. Morgan, while her mother arranged herself comfortably with a footstool, a book upon the table beside her, and her knitting, but with a furtive inclination towards an afternoon nap, which the greyness of the day, the early failing light in the dark wainscoted parlour, and the absence of all movement about her, naturally inclined her to. Mrs. John was at the age when we are very much ashamed of the afternoon nap, and she was well provided with semblances of occupation in case anyone should come. But Mrs. Morgan was far beyond any such simple deceit. Eighty has vast advantages in this way. When she felt disposed to doze a little she was quite pleased, almost proud of the achievement. She had indeed a book on the table with her spectacles carefully folded into it, but she did not require any occupation.

“I had a kind of feeling that you would come, my pet,” she said as Hester appeared. “When I want you very much I think some kind little angel must go and tap you on the shoulder, for you always come.”

“The captain would say it is a brainwave,” said Hester.

“The captain says a great deal of nonsense, my dear,” said the old lady with a smile, “but think of him going with Roland to the station! He has been vanquished, quite vanquished⁠—which is a great pleasure to me. And Emma is coming. I hope she will not wear out the good impression⁠—”

“Is she not so⁠—nice?” Hester asked.

The old lady looked her favourite intently in the face. She saw the too great clearness of Hester’s eyes, and that her mouth was not smiling, but drawn downward; and a vague dread filled her mind. She was full of love and charity, but she was full of insight too; and though she loved Roland, she did not think it would be to the advantage of Hester to love him.

“Roland is very nice,” she said. “Poor boy, perhaps that is his temptation. It is his nature to please whomsoever he comes across. It is a beautiful kind of nature; but I am not sure that it is not very dangerous both for himself⁠—and others.”

It was fortunate that Hester did not divine what her friend meant.

“Dangerous⁠—to please?” she said, with a little curiosity. She liked Roland so much, that even from the lips of those who had more right to him than she had, she did not like to hear blame.

“To wish to please⁠—everybody,” said the old lady. “My poor lad! that is his temptation. Your grandfather, if he were here⁠—my dear, I beg your pardon. I have got into the way of saying it: as if my old man was your grandfather too.”

“I like it,” Hester said, with the only gleam of her usual frank and radiant smile which Mrs. Morgan had yet seen. But this made the old lady only more afraid.

“There is nobody he could be more fatherly to,” she said. “What I meant was that if he were here, he would have something ready out of a book, as you and he are always going on with your poetries; but I never was a poetry woman, as you know. Life is all my learning. And I have seen people that have had plenty of heart, Hester, if they had given it fair play⁠—but frittered it away on one and another, trying to give a piece to each, making each believe that she (for it is mostly upon women that the spell works) was the one above all others. But you are so young, my darling; you will not know what I mean.”

A faint, uneasy colour, came on Hester’s face.

“I think I know what you mean,” she said. “I understand how you should think so of Mr. Ashton. You don’t see so well as you did, dear Mrs. Morgan, when you have not got your spectacles on. If you did, you would see that when he talks like that, he is ready to laugh all the time.”

“Is that so, my love? Then I am very glad to hear you say so,” cried the