clicked up with flattery and amusement,
looking desperately about to see if this were
really all the world had got to offer them; or
else they were worse, that is, contented at
heart with the worthlessness of what they had
got, yet pretending to be sick of it like the rest.

"Then I went back to my great house in
the country, but I was no bigger in its vastness
than a maggot in a cheese. And the place did
not want me. Everything was going on too
well. The people were all happy, my agent
was wise and careful. I was quite a
superfluous article in my own establishment. I was
too small for my big possessions. They wanted
somebody with a great mind and a great heart
to make use of them. I had neither. I could
only waste money on my own petty frivolous
desires. Dresses, and jewels——"

Miss Janet paused. Hester looked down on
the luxurious creature who was complaining so
bitterly, and laid her hands together involuntarily
as she thought with a sudden joy of the
Mother Augustine.

"What are you smiling at?" Miss Janet
said. "Well, there was a time came after that
—I think the country after all did me good—
when I got happy for a while, when I could
have actually sat a whole day at a window like
you, doing sewing, and smiling in a plain, plain
gown. Could you believe it? But I am not
going to tell you about that time. Bah! what
was I talking about a moment ago? Dresses
and jewels. You shall see my jewels."

And she ran away, and came back with a
great brass-bound box in her arms.

"I am going to dazzle you, and make a
picture of you," she said, and began loading
Hester with bracelets and necklets, glittering
chains, and blazing crosses, green gems, and
purple gems, yellow gems, and diamonds.

Hester submitted to the operation with a
smiling wonder at the novelty and absurdity of
the scene.

"Now," she said, "I am like an Egyptian
idol. I am a monster of magnificence."

"You are a Scheherazade—a 'beautiful
Persian'—a fairy queen."

"A fairy queen would have dewdrops and
bits of rainbows for her ornaments," said
Hester. "She would be ashamed of your hard
glaring stones and your clanking metals."

"So you despise them!" said Janet. "Well
I would rather have your golden hair."

After this Miss Janet's affection for Hester
seemed to grow and strengthen every day.
Hester was an interest for her in this old-
fashioned, dull castle, where she had only been
pretending to have an interest in things before.
"You shall not do any sewing for me," she
said; "you will have enough on your hands
between Miss Madge and Lady Helen. You shall
teach me to sew, and I will sew for myself."
And she actually did pick a new gown to pieces,
and set to work to put it together again with a
needle and thread. Whether she ever wore the
said gown after this performance it is happily
not necessary to recollect. But the responsibility
of a great labour on her hands often
brought her to take a seat at Hester's side.
And she was not fond of silence, having met
with a companion to her taste. Having,
unasked, made a confession of her own feelings
and circumstances, she claimed the right to
expect that the seamstress would give her a like
history of her (Hester's) experiences. But
Hester was not eloquent according to her desire.
Yes, she had been for some years at a
good school. Yes, she had learned her art from
a first-rate modiste. It would have been rude
so to question her, had Janet met her in a
drawing-room; but in a tower-room, with a
needle in her hand, it was only sympathising
and kind. But Hester was not communicative,
was sometimes a little distressed. Yes, she had
had a friend who had taken an interest in, and
protected her. The name of that friend? Oh,
there was the pink gauze floating into the fire!
What a narrow escape for Miss Madge's new
scarf!

Then, very often, Lady Helen came fluttering
in, like an elderly butterfly, perched upon a chair
for a little time, viewing with exquisite satisfaction
the delicate operations which were
progressing, but soon fluttered out again to her
couches, her novels, and her dogs. And if any
awful whispers should be going rustling about
the passages, be sure the whisperers took care
that Lady Helen's door was shut.

But, more often a great deal, there came Miss
Madge to visit Hester. The Honourable Madge
had also her rooms in the tower, just a flight of
winding stairs below Hester. And the Honourable
Madge held it a Christian thing to be
neighbourly; and, though come of a noble
lineage, as she was careful never to forget, yet
the Honourable Madge was so far a model
Christian as to feel warranted in being
neighbourly in excess with a nice young lady
seamstress, who sat stitch, stitch, stitching at Miss
Madge's elegant raiment, in the chamber above
her head.

She grew so very neighbourly, indeed, that
of a wintry evening, when Lady Helen and
Miss Janet stepped, shivering in lace and
gossamer, into their coach to drive half a dozen
miles in search of their dinner, she, Madge,
would come tapping to Hester's door with
overtures for a mutual cup of tea. It was
Hester's hour of ease, the hour when she wrote
her letters. Her sewing of the day was laid
aside, her fire was burning brightly, her desk
open on the table.

"You do look so comfortable, my dear. Ah,
you sly thing, hiding away your letters! My
dear, I have a soft corner for young hearts.
This is a lover, I have no doubt."

"Not at all," said Hester, flushing
indignantly, but keeping her hand upon the
superscription of her letter.

"Well, well, child, I did not mean to offend
you. But you look so very secret about it.
Put it away now for the present. I have ordered
up some tea."

Miss Madge had just finished her evening