HESTER'S HISTORY.

A NEW SERIAL TALE.

CHAPTER XVIII. MRS. HAZELDEAN GETS A NEW
GOWN.

"WELL, I must say you need a handsome
dress, Margaret!" said Lady Helen. "I am
glad to find you getting so much more like
other people as to think of it. I shall be very
pleased to lend you our young dressmaker for a
week or so. You may trust her with anything.
She is a most efficient person."

"What are you going to have," asked Miss
Madge, in an ecstasy of interest. "Have cerise
satin—so useful for dinner. Not very serviceable
to be sure, but then a little French chalk
is such an excellent thing for gravy stains."

"Thank you, Madge," said Mrs. Hazeldean,
laughing; "but I believe cerise satin would
take away my appetite."

"Would it now?" said the Honourable
Madge, quite shocked. "Well, do you know
I think I always eat better when I have a
lively bit of colour about me."

"I hope you will smarten her up a little,"
she said to Hester. "It is a great opportunity
for her, and I hope you and she will both take
advantage of it. She wears very good materials,
you know, my dear," said poor Madge, sighing,
and feeling her own flimsy gown between her
finger and thumb. "She is ladylike, I must
say; but she selects such dowdy colours, and
she has no regard at all for Paris style. She
has all her gowns made high up to her throat,
and she never puts a bit of powder in her hair.
She means well, I am sure, for she is good, you
know, my dear, as good as gold; but it's a
pity to see her waste herself as she does. For
she is handsome, is Margaret, though Helen
don't see it.

"I shall miss you sadly, my dear. I have no
relish now for the solitude of my own chamber,
which used to please me vastly—for ten minutes
or so at a time. There is no one else in this place
who enters into the ideas that prey upon my
mind. Yet I do not grudge you to her if you
improve dear Margaret. You are a lady, my
dear, and no one pretends to deny that. You
must show her a good example. Take some of
your pretty gowns, and wear them under her
nose."

"No, Miss Madge," said Hester, "I will
lock them all up in my trunk, and I have half a
mind to lose the key. I am sick of pretty
gowns. I believe I shall never wear anything
all my days but a very old plain frock. When
this gets threadbare"—looking at her sleeve—
"it will be very nice. I think when I get time
I will have a piece of sack-cloth and make
myself a new dress. I am tired of your pinks
and your greens, your satins, and your gauzes."

The Honourable Madge stood transfixed for
a few moments in silence.

"My dear," she said, presently, "with such
ideas in your mind, I cannot think where your
genius came from."

And then she went away sorrowful,
disappointed in her favourite.

So it had been arranged that Hester was to
be lent out to Mrs. Hazeldean. The evening
before her departure for the village, Lady Helen
and Miss Golden drove away to dine
somewhere at a distance; but they had not been
gone above two hours when Miss Janet walked
into Hester's tower-room with all her magnificent
dining paraphernalia removed, and a
dressing-gown thrown over her muslin petticoats.

"On such a night to be sent home again,
after enduring to dress in the cold!" she
exclaimed, with her chin raised to the extreme
angle of pique and indignant vexation. And
no wonder she was vexed. She had gone to
the trouble of doing away with her pretty dark
curls, in place of which a snow-white edifice,
ornamented with roses, had been erected on
her head. And I must say that her face looked
very charming underneath it, surmounting her
long wrapper of rose-coloured flannel.

"A pretty country to live in, if it is not safe
to drive a few miles along the road at night!"
continued Miss Janet. "I don't believe in it, for
my part. I think the whole fuss has come of
Sir Archie Munro's talent for ordering about,
and protecting, forsooth! Not safe, indeed!
Why, I never knew the people anything but
civil and good-natured. And if it be not safe
to drive a few miles along the road, what a
nice prospect for my getting home to
England!"

Miss Janet seated herself in Hester's low
arm-chair by the fender, and made herself as
comfortable as she could.

"Give up fidgetting about, do, and come