ight have been wished.
Out-of-doors, however, Sophia vaunted the attachment of Morris to her
young mistress--an attachment so strong, as that she would have been
really hurt if any one else had been allowed to sit up with Hester; and
indeed no one could have filled her place half so much to the
satisfaction of the family--Morris had had so much experience, and was
as fond of her charge as a mother could be. No one knew what a treasure
her cousins had in Morris. All of which was true in its separate
particulars, though altogether it did not constitute the reason why
Hester had no nurse from Buckley.

They were happy and satisfied. Yes, even Margaret. This infant opened
up a spring of consolation in her heart, which she could not have
believed existed there. On this child she could pour out some of her
repressed affections, and on him did she rest her baffled hopes. He
beguiled her into the future, from which she had hitherto recoiled.
That helpless, unconscious little creature, cradled on her arm, and
knowing nothing of its resting-place, was more powerful than sister,
brother, or friend--than self-interest, philosophy, or religion, in
luring her imagination onward into future years of honour and peace.
Holy and sweet was the calm of her mind, as, forgetting herself and her
griefs, she watched the first efforts of this infant to acquaint himself
with his own powers, and with the world about him; when she smiled at
the ungainly stretching of the little limbs, and the unpractised
movement of his eyes seeking the light. Holy and sweet were the tears
which swelled into her eyes when she saw him at his mother's breast, and
could not but gaze at the fresh and divine beauty now mantling on that
mother's face, amidst the joy of this new relation. It was a delicious
moment when Hope came in, the first day that Hester sat by the fireside,
when he stopped short for a brief instant, as if arrested by the beauty
of what he saw; and then glanced towards Margaret for sympathy. It was
a delicious moment to her--the moment of that full, free, unembarrassed
glance, which she had scarcely met since the first days of their
acquaintance.

It was a pleasure to them all to see Hester well provided with luxuries.
Maria, knowing that her surgeon would not accept money from her, took
this opportunity of sending in wine. Oh, the pleasure of finding the
neglected corkscrew, and making Morris take a glass with them! The
Greys brought ga