But Hester's greatest friend in Middleshire was the Bishop of Southminster, with whom Rachel was staying, and whom she was expecting this afternoon.

Chapter XII

*

The depth and dream of my desire,
The bitter paths wherein I stray,
Thou knowest Who hast made the Fire,
Thou knowest Who hast made the clay!
—RUDYARD KIPLING.

The unbalanced joys and sorrows of emotional natures are apt to arouse the pity of the narrow-hearted and the mild contempt of the obtuse of their fellow-creatures.

But perhaps it is a mistake to feel compassion for persons like Hester, for if they have many evil days and weeks in their usually short lives, they have also moments of sheer bliss, hours of awed contemplation and of exquisite rapture which, possibly, in the long run, equal the more solid joys of a good income and a good digestion, nay, even the perennial glow of that happiest of happy temperaments which limits the nature of others by its own, which sees no uncomfortable difference between a moral and a legal right, and believes it can measure life with the same admirable accuracy with which it measures its drawing-room curtains.

As Hester and Rachel sat together in the Vicarage drawing-room, Rachel's faithful, doglike eyes detected no trace of tears in Hester's dancing, mischievous ones. They were alone, for the Bishop had dropped Rachel on his way to visit a sick clergyman, and had arranged to call at the Vicarage on his way back.

Hester quickly perceived that Rachel did not wish to talk of herself, and drew a quaint picture of her own life at Warpington, which she described "not wisely but too well." But she was faithful to her salt. She said nothing of the Gresleys to which those worthies could have objected had they been present. Indeed, she spoke of them in what they would have termed "a very proper manner," of their kindness to her when she had been ill, of how Mr. Gresley had himself brought up her breakfast-tray every morning, and how, in the spring, he had taught her to bicycle.

"But, oh! Rachel," added Hester, "during the last nine months my self-esteem has been perforated with wounds, each large enough to kill the poor creature. My life here has shown me horrible faults in myself of which I never dreamed. I feel as if I had been ironed all over since I came here, and all kinds of ugly words in invisible ink are coming out clear in the process."

"I am quite alarmed," said Rachel, tranquilly.

"You ought to be. First of all I did think I cared nothing about food. I don't remember ever giving it a thought when I lived with Aunt Susan. But here I—I am difficult about it. I do try to eat it, but often I really can't. And then I leave it on my plate, which is a disgusting habit, which always offends me in other people. Now I am as bad as any of them; indeed, it is worse in me because I know poor James is not very rich."