"James and I have always kept clear of that," she remarked, with dignity. "For my part, I dare say you will think me very old-fashioned, but I must own I never can see that people with titles or wealth are one bit nicer or pleasanter than those without them."

Hester agreed.

"And," continued Mrs. Gresley, "it has always been our aim to be independent, not to bow down before any one. If I am unworldly, it is because I had the advantage of parents who impressed on me the hollowness of all social distinctions. If the Pratts were given a title to-morrow I should behave exactly the same to them as I do now."

If Lady Susan Gresley had passed her acquaintance through a less exclusive sieve, Hester might have had the advantage of hearing all these well-worn sentiments, and of realizing the point of view of a large number of her fellow-creatures before she became an inconspicuous unit in their midst.

But if Mrs. Gresley was pained by Hester's predilection for the society of what she called "swells" (the word, though quite extinct in civilized parts, can occasionally be found in country districts), she was still more pained by the friendships Hester formed with persons whom her sister-in-law considered "not quite."

Mrs. Gresley was always perfectly civil, and the Pratts imperfectly so, to Miss Brown, the doctor's invalid sister. But Hester made friends with her, in spite of the warnings of Mrs. Gresley that kindness was one thing and intimacy another.

"The truth is," Mrs. Gresley would say, "Hester loves adulation, and as she can't get it from the Pratts and us, she has to go to those below her in the social scale, like Miss Brown, who will give it to her. Miss Brown may be very cultivated. I dare say she is, but she makes up to Hester."

Sybell Loftus, who lived close at hand at Wilderleigh, across the Prone, was one of the very few besides Miss Brown among her new acquaintances who hailed Hester at once as a kindred spirit, to the unconcealed surprise of the Pratts and the Gresleys. Sybell adored Hester's book, which the Gresleys and Pratts considered rather peculiar "as emanating from the pen of a clergyman's sister." She enthusiastically suggested to Hester several improvements which might easily be made in it, which would have changed its character altogether. She even intrenched on the sacred precinct of a married woman's time to write out the openings of several romances, which she was sure Hester, with her wonderful talent, could build up into magnificent works of art. She was always running over to the Vicarage to confide to Hester the unique thoughts which had been vouchsafed to her while contemplating a rose, or her child, or her husband, or all three together.

Hester was half amused, half fascinated, and ruefully lost many of the mornings still left her by the Pratts and Gresleys in listening to the outpourings of this butterfly soul, which imagined every flower it involuntarily alighted on and drew honey from to be its own special production.