Miss Hester

“ The little maid had been assiduous in offering her hymn-book to the winning visitor, and as a supreme mark of confidence had finally deposited her doll on Hester's knee, and then sat nestling her fair shining curls against her arm. The picture came back to him now, a tableau graven on his memory. Would that a little flaxen head like that were their very own! What a changed man such a pledge of love would make of him! ”

“ When Hester was two years old a wheezy hand-organ would set her eyes to sparkling and her cheeks to dimpling, and when she was twenty the "Maiden's Prayer," played by a school-girl, would fill her soul with ecstasy. To Hester, all the world seemed full of melody. ”

“ She had nervous trouble and brain fever that caused her to become gray; but in other ways she is like a girl. She is most unselfish. The girls in school love her. She understands what girls like and is always doing something nice for them. I cannot explain to you in what way she is so attractive. When you meet her, you'll understand just how she is."
"I may never meet her," said practical Hester. [Pg 72]
"You will if you remain at Dickinson. When she is at her home, she comes to see me very often. Her country home, Valehurst, is back on the hills, about three miles from here. ”

“ It was at this picnic, the Finley annual, that he asked Hester, then seventeen, to marry him. She was darkly, wildly pretty, as a rambler rose tugging at its stem is restlessly pretty, as a pointed little gazelle smelling up at the moon is whimsically pretty, as a runaway stream from off the flank of a river is naughtily pretty, and she wore a crisp percale shirt waist with a saucy bow at the collar, fifty-cent silk stockings, and already she had almond incarnadine nails with points to them. ”

“ Arising from her place at the grate, she moved away to the end of the room and stood looking out on the white earth. After a few minutes' struggle with herself, she came back to where Miss Richards sat, "Eva, cannot your imagination fill out what I cannot tell? You know there are conditions of blood and family which bear a stain which generations cannot eradicate. Poor Hester, innocent and brilliant as she is, bears that mark. You know why I wish to make her independent and self-sustaining. ”

“ What a pretty party! Hester breathed ecstatically. Everybody looks so well!
Mary could not avoid observing that Hester was wearing a gown of black and yellow striped satin, cut princesse, with very long, tight sleeves and a train. On another this robe might have appeared picturesque. Hester merely succeeded in looking more dowdy than usual.
Très, très jolie, Orville echoed in his thin, squeaky voice. What charming music! Charmante!
It makes you dance, Byron commented dryly. ”

“ Hester is not beautiful like you, so that every one must acknowledge and no one can deny her beauty; but I love her face. And she is very clever, wonderfully clever. Robert, have you never told Katharine about Hester? She used to be quite one of ourselves, you know. She knows all about you, Katharine, and takes the greatest interest in you. ”

“ Hester was astonished at the grasp and power of her mother. The child may for many years have but little idea of the thought and life within the form and face he knows and loves better than any; but at last the predestined moment arrives, the two minds meet, and the child understands the parent. Hester threw herself on her knees, and buried her face in her mother's lap. The same moment she began to discover that she had been proud, imagining herself more awake to duty than the rest around her. ”

“ Their little house looked something like a doll’s house to Hester, who had been accustomed all her life to large rooms and spacious passages; but it was the sweetest, daintiest, and most charming little abode in the world. It was not unlike a nest, and the Misses Bruce in certain ways resembled bright little robin redbreasts, so small, so neat, so chirrupy they were.
Hester enjoyed her afternoon immensely; the little ladies were right in their prophesy, and she was no longer lonely at school. She enjoyed talking about her schoolfellows, about her new life, about her studies. ”

“ Miss Hester thought for a moment. "I can make buttonholes beautifully and do all sorts of fine sewing and embroidery. Hand-work is very much in vogue now and I surely ought to eke out my income; and then you know there is the claim," she added with a little smile.
"Pshaw!" said the doctor, as he brought his stick down hard, but he did not try to urge her further, though he shook his head and sighed.
And so it was that, with the best and choicest of her belongings, Miss Hester removed to the tiny house with its bit of front yard and its roomier back lot. ”

“ Exceedingly popular with the villagers, idolized by her husband, perfectly happy in her baby, surrounded by every luxury which wealth can furnish and every care lifted from her by old Hester’s thoughtfulness, there has as yet been no shadow, however small, upon her married life, and her face is as fair and beautiful, and her voice as full of glee as when she sat with Roger by the river side and felt the first awakenings of the love which has since grown to be her life. ”

“ After a fortnight spent at Lavender House, Hester had to acknowledge that the little Misses Bruce were right, and that school might be a really enjoyable place for some girls. She would not yet admit that it could be enjoyable for her. Hester was too shy, too proud, too exacting to be popular with her schoolfellows. She knew nothing of school-girl life—she had never learned the great secret of success in all life’s perplexities, the power to give and take. It never occurred to Hester to look over a hasty word, to take no notice of an envious or insolent look. ”

“ Oh, fie! baby; and what sticky hands! Miss Hetty, she has crumpled all your crape frills.”
“What matter?” said Hester. “I wanted a good hug, and I gave her three or four lumps. Babies won’t squeeze you tight for nothing. There, my Nancy, go back to Nurse. Nurse, take her away; I’ll break down in a minute if I see her looking at me with that little pout.”
Nurse took the child into her arms.
“Good-bye, Miss Hester, dear. Try to be a good girl at school. Take my word, missy—things won’t be as dark as they seem.” ”

“ The girls rejoiced with Hester, all except Berenice. She went through with the form of congratulations, but her voice had a sarcastic touch and her eyes had narrowed themselves into mere slits. Her words were a little uncertain as to meaning; but Hester to whom all things appeared beautiful, was in no mood to take exception.
"I'm sure I'm glad you're on the scrub," she said slowly. "I'm always glad to see people get what they work so hard for." ”

“ There were good-natured people who said that Lady Hester's admiration had another source, and that, as a somewhat passee beauty, she knew the full value of a younger and handsomer woman in attracting to her circle and society all that was distinguished by rank or station. ”

“ Stress of circumstances had lent what the French would have called a brutal side to Hester's natural candour and sincerity. It was one comfort that she was still more brutal to herself than to the rest of the world.
[190] When Rose Millar showed her sister-artist some of Rose's sketches, Hester gave them a glance and a toss aside one after the other. ”

“ Here a tally-ho with four horses stood waiting.
Robert assisted the Fraulein and girls to their places and bade the coachman drive on. Hester and Helen sat side by side.
"Now, I am really to meet your Aunt Harriet," said Hester. "It is very strange. Think of my rooming with you for ten months and never meeting her."
"Never met mother?" exclaimed Robert Vail. "Be prepared to meet the finest mother in the world."
"There may be some exception," said Helen, "at least Hester may think so. She may be vain enough to think that she had the finest mother in the world." ”

“ Fellowes to come and be with you?"
"No, no, just for to-day let me be alone. There is such a thing as getting acquainted with grief, you know," returned Hester, with a sad smile.
"As you will, my dear! Then, I should like to tell you that all the offices for the dead will be my care. You will let me have my son just once in his father's house?" he asked, in a pleading tone. "It is my purpose to take him to Calcutta and lay him beside his young mother. And you, Hester, will want to return to your happy home? You have youth and hope still with you. ”

“ Hester told him. She wondered as she did so why he had asked the question as though it were of moment.
"Who are your people? Have you always lived there?"
He had touched Hester on the one delicate subject of her life. She had pride enough for several girls. Not even Aunt Debby knew how her lack of parentage and name had hurt her. She had never permitted herself to think of it, lest she should grow depressed and unhappy. And to think that now this Robert Vail whom she had liked so much, had presumed to question her. ”

“ Hester felt instinctively whom she meant. The mistress read her own terror in the servant’s face; and as they sat silently clasped in each other’s arms, all of a sudden they both became conscious of another’s presence in the room. A dusky form flitted across the light, a lean hand stole in snake-like between the drawn curtains at the bottom of the bed, then a human head, hollow-cheeked and evil-looking, peeped in upon the affrighted women, with a wolfish glare half hidden in its wicked eyes. ”

“ So you are to all friends, Hester, and in that wonderfully unlike most women of the world; and you know the world as well as any one, I think. But talking of old friends and constancy, what about that silly girl Streightley's sister, that Katharine, and you too, Hester, bored one to death with last year? ”

“ And if we don't make a heap of money for the Red Cross, after all the advertising we've had, what will folks think of us?"
They were really all worried by the fear of failure. All but Hester. She did not appear to care. And it did seem as though every time she rehearsed she made the "dark lady" of the rose garden more wooden and impossible than before.
At length Mr. Mann had given her up as hopeless. It seemed impossible to make Hester act like a human being even, let alone like a graceful lady. ”

“ It may seem strange that Lady Hester, who had lived a good deal in the world, should never have met a character of this type, but so it was; she belonged to a certain “fast set” in society, who seem to ask for a kind of indemnity for all they do, by never, on any occasion, stopping to criticise their neighbors. This semblance of good nature is a better defensive armor than the uninitiated know of, enlisting all loose sympathies with its possessor, and even gaining for its advocates that great floating majority who speak much and think little. ”

“ Not oppress me with this ridiculous burthensome care and attention, all out of the family pride you still keep up in the Trevors!" she sneered.
"No, Hester. Sister Hester, will you not believe it is love?" I said, thinking that if she would believe that we loved her and forgave her, it might help her to believe that her Father above did. ”

“ I wish I had a lollipop to stop your mouth with."
"You must listen," said Hester in a firm voice; "I'm not joking. Times come in all lives when one cannot joke. I did not love you as my schoolfellow, Susy, and, frankly, I do not love you now; but, when you come to the Towers, I'll do everything in my power to help you, not because I like to do this, but because it's right. ”

“ Hester saw it and said within herself, "That boy has good blood in his veins. He's no clodhopper's son, I can tell by his hands and feet, his air and walk. Poor lad, it's hard for him, I'll warrant, but he's not too proud for honest work, and I like that."
"You may stay, Paul, and we will try you for a month. Hester, take him to Parks and see that he is made comfortable. Tomorrow we will see what he can do. ”

“ Hester thought as she went whether, if it had not been for the possibility of repentance, the world would ever have been made at all.
On her way to her room she met the major, looking for herself, to tell him about her mother, of whose attack, as he had been out for a long walk, he had but just heard.
"But what did it, Hester?" he said. "I can smell in the air something has gone wrong: what the deuce is it? There's always something getting out of gear in this best of worlds?" ”

“ The few and well-chosen words of the head-mistress generally roused those girls who loved her best to a fever of enthusiasm, and even Hester, who was comparatively a newcomer, felt a great wish, as she listened to that clear and vibrating voice and watched the many expressions which passed over the noble face, that she might find something beyond the mere earthly honour and glory of success in this coming trial. ”

“ Will you explain to Miss Debby and the girls? I am not running away, but I must not let my mother stay there alone."
"Yes, you must go. Do not give a thought about us. We shall be very well taken care of here. Poor Aunt Harriet! How I wish I might fill that empty place in her heart!"
Hester had been walking a few steps in advance; but had heard the conversation. Why should Helen always speak of her aunt as though she were to be pitied? Mrs. Vail had everything that a woman could desire—a beautiful home with trained service, a husband and son who considered no one but her. ”