making flannel nightcaps to cover rheumatic
jaws. A stool was found for Hester, who sat
quietly at her knee. What was now to be
said? The mother desired a confidence. Every
stitch that she put in her flannel was aware of
that. But Hester was not accustomed to being
questioned about her circumstances, to making
descriptions of her feelings. The mother had
written to her friends at Hampton Court.
Well, that had been said before. Still, the
saying it again was better than silence; and,
besides, such a common-place repetition might
lead to other and more original remarks.

"It was kind to take the trouble," said
Hester, "and I know that it was necessary to
be done. But I will not go back to Hampton
Court again. Help me, dear madam, that I
may be able to keep away!"

"Have you other friends, my child?" said
the mother.

"No other friends," admitted Hester; "but
I am better without any."

"That is far too sad a speech," said the
mother, "too sad, and not likely to be true."
And she put her hand on the girl's shoulder,
and looked searchingly and pityingly in her
eyes.

"Don't!" said Hester, quickly, fairly turning
her head away. "That is like your music.
I cannot bear it. I do not know it, and it
hurts me." The mother withdrew her gaze, and
dropped away her hand to her side with a sigh.

"I must ask you to tell me something of your
story," she said', "of your relations with these
people, before I can make the venture to give
you counsel."

So it all came forth at last, with reservations
and hesitations it is true, for had not Lady
Humphrey, after all mishaps, been a bountiful
protector? And Hester was abashed at her own
ingratitude, even as she felt herself begin to
speak. Still the story of her childhood, her
youth, her dressmaking experiences, and later
young ladyhood, gathered shape out of the
confusion of the telling, and made itself known
somehow to the ear, or at least the mind, of
the listener. Hester had hardly herself known
before how well she had weighed each novelty,
each event, each excitement of her life; been
conscious of its unwholesomeness, been weary
of its unlastingness, been indignant at, and
oppressed by, the injustice that had forced it on
her. The restless dissatisfaction had all been
lying aching at the bottom of her heart. She
had been patient with it, angry with it; had
humoured it, and suffered from it; but she had
never given it a voice before. The nun was
amazed hearing her, that, being young, she had
already so learned to think and speak. Hester
was amazed, hearing herself, that, being old, as
she felt herself, she had never so spoken her
thoughts before.

"I am tired," she said, "of changes and
shocks. I want to know how to think of
myself. Every other person in the world has
some place, but I am one thing to-day, and
another to-morrow. If I am not to be a lady,
I would rather be left alone to get accustomed
to my level among tradespeople. And if I
cannot be loved long, as I know I have no
right, being so low, then neither have those
people who are higher the right to insist upon,
loving me for a little while. Perhaps the peace
of my life is as valuable to me as their whim of
an hour is to them."

So the nun tried no further endearments.
The girl in her present humour was not ready
to put her trust in them; in her present excitement
was, perhaps, not equal to the labour of
fighting them off, according to the habit that
had been trained in her. And the mother said,
quietly, by-and-by: "We will return to all this
another time. Now, if you please, you can
come and see my hospital."

And the mother had a meaning in this abrupt
diversion. Who, in sound health and the
strength of youth, passing down those long
rows of quiet beds, looking on the wasted forms,
the shrivelled hands lying here and there listless
on the coverlet, the marks of pain upon the
weary faces, and detecting only now and then a
half-checked groan or sigh, could help feeling
confounded at the thought of his own
impatience, his fretfulness about the shortcomings of
his fate? He must forget his own sorrow; he
must hang his head and feel ashamed "to sit
down on his little handful of thorns."

Just once did the mother lead Hester round
the wards where the patients lay in mortal pain,
that her young restlessness might be abashed
by the presence of real agony. It was also a
sort of test to which she thought of putting this
girl in whom she had found a new interest.
If Hester shrank and retreated in a weak fear,
she should know how to deal with her in pity.
If the sympathy at her heart, and the awe and
appreciation suddenly widening her mind, kept
her foot unflinchingly on the sad track of pain
to the end, then she should know how to deal
with her in honour and in joy.

The mother passed softly up and down the
little alleys between the beds, now wiping a poor
moist face, now bathing a burning head, now
holding the grateful cup between thirsty lips.
And a broken word followed her here and there;
sometimes it was "God—-" and there was
breath for no more; yet such crude beginnings
of prayers as even this may find a listening
angel at hand to take them up and put a finish
to them in Heaven. Or perhaps it was only
the living eloquent eyes that tried to speak
while the tongue was already paralysed by the
swift approach of death. And Hester, all the
while, stood just a little way off, not afraid to
be in such presence, but not daring to draw too
near. The mother looked up at her sometimes
with a smile of indescribable sweetness and
approval, as she stood pale but strong, fixed in a
sort of terrible rapture at what was passing.

"This is her daily work," thought Hester,
her eyes filled with the graceful figure of the
nun, taking in all the refinement and dignity of
person and bearing which even the folds of
harsh serge had obeyed so lovingly that