Hester knew her place by this time.

"If you will please to step this way to the
mirror," she said, "you can watch what I do,
and make your own suggestions. But I believe
I know my business pretty well."

Lady Humphrey in her mirror watched the
face that flitted over her shoulder, behind her
back, beneath her arm, as Hester pinned, and
snipped, and ripped, and stitched again; and
she saw and recognised that it was a rare face,
in which all the changes of expression followed
one another in as perfect a harmony as do full
chords of music when they are following out
the method of a tune: with great sweetness
and delicacy about the mouth and chin, great
breadth and earnestness about the eyes and
forehead, and much childlike grace in the little
waving locks of warm golden hair that lay
within the shelter of her bonnet. Passion and
poetry, courage and simplicity, all were in that
face, and Lady Humphrey knew it. And as
the serious eyes criticised the fall of the satin
on her shoulder, and the steady little fingers
plied here and there about her waist with pin
and needle, the woman felt the same antagonistic
spirit rise within her against the girl that
had risen once before against the child, when
it had whispered, "Come out, Mary Stuart, and
hear the nightingales."

Hester, having finished her work, was not
asked to take off her bonnet, nor invited to any
refreshment. That it was cruel treatment, Lady
Humphrey knew, for the girl looked fatigued,
and decidedly not robust; but Lady
Humphrey's mood was to be cruel on that evening.
Her son had made her angry and disappointed.
She had hinted to him of things that lay next
her heart, and he had turned from her in
disgust. She could no longer dare to think of
him as an ally. He had left her at last in anger
on account of this Hester. And now here was
this Hester, at her mercy. Should she give
her meat and wine, and lay her to rest upon
her softest bed? No, she would send her out
alone, in the rain that was beginning to fall,
and let her find her way back, unprotected, to
London. A girl whose pure spiritual face,
shining unconscious over her shoulders in a
looking-glass, could make her feel gross, and
cunning, and wicked, deserved no better
treatment at her hands.

"How do you purpose returning to town?"
asked Lady Humphrey, as the large summer
raindrops came sliding down the pane. Hester
was tying up her parcel, and the room was
growing dark. Lady Humphrey expected terror,
tears, and a prayer to be allowed to remain in
shelter till morning. After all, perhaps she
hoped for such a scene. It gratified her at the
moment to be harsh, but it would have suited
her plans to be obliged to relent.

But Hester, nothing daunted, explained.
She had been turning this matter in her mind
while she worked, and had hit upon a means of
getting home.

"Mrs. Gossamer's laundress lives in
Richmond," she said, "and to-morrow will be her
morning for starting at daybreak for London.
She will take me in her cart, I daresay."

"But where will you pass the night in the
mean time?" said Lady Humphrey,
unwillingly.

"Oh, she will let me sleep in the crib with
Baby Johnny. Baby Johnny and I are great
friends."

And so Hester went upon her way. "Oh
dear! oh dear!" she wept as she went along;
"I will never come back to Hampton Court
again!"

And yet it would have suited Lady Humphrey
to have taken her by the hand, kept her by her
side, affected an interest in her, kissed and
made friends. Within the last few hours, even,
while her son Pierce had been talking to her,
while she had mused alone after his departure,
and again while Hester's head had gleamed over
her shoulder in the looking-glass, a light had
shone upon her difficulties which had shown
her the necessity of withdrawing this girl from
her wholesome distance and independence, to
fill a gap in the plan that was daily taking
shape within her brain. She had wrapped her
up in that cloud no bigger than a man's hand
which had risen in the western sky. She had
found a place for her in the economy of the
scheme that lay at her heart. She had work
marked out for her to do, with her innocence, her
truthfulness, her beauty, and that well-remembered
fervour of her nature, which had made
her hostile, but might make her useful. She
had had this arranged, and yet she had lost an
opportunity, increasing the difficulties of the
task that lay before her; and all for the
gratification of an impulse of illwill.

"I have been silly!" said Lady Humphrey;
"but it is not yet too late." And she sent off
a messenger to Richmond.

Hester was supping on bread and milk, with
Baby Johnny in her arms. The cottage door was
open, and the summer rain was falling, falling,
pattering over the broad freckled faces of the
laurel leaves, beating the fragrant breath out
of the musk, filling the pink cups of the sweet-brier
roses upon the gable, till their golden
hearts were drowning in refreshment. The
laundress was packing up her snowy linens and
muslins in their baskets, and Baby Johnny was
falling asleep with his face buried in Hester's
yellow hair, when Lady Humphrey's page
arrived, and looked in at the open door.

The boy brought a note. Lady Humphrey
desired earnestly that Hester should return and
stay the night. The morning would be wet,
and a drive in the cart not pleasant. And a
nice soft shawl had been sent for muffling, and
an umbrella to protect her. Hester could not
choose but go. She looked round the homely
cottage with regret, kissed Baby Johnny, and
set out.

The night was not dark, and the gardens of
the palace were delicious with the genial rain.
Falling, falling, it quenched the fire at the
earth's heart. So had melted that little cloud