nd-boy into Foster's shop--watching with quiet,
modest, yet observant eyes--had seen how devoted he was to his
master's interests, had known of his careful and punctual
ministration to his absent mother's comforts, as long as she was
living to benefit by his silent, frugal self-denial.

His methodical appropriation of the few hours he could call his own
was not without its charms to the equally methodical Hester; the way
in which he reproduced any lately acquired piece of
knowledge--knowledge so wearisome to Sylvia--was delightfully
instructive to Hester--although, as she was habitually silent, it
would have required an observer more interested in discovering her
feelings than Philip was to have perceived the little flush on the
pale cheek, and the brightness in the half-veiled eyes whenever he
was talking. She had not thought of love on either side. Love was a
vanity, a worldliness not to be spoken about, or even thought about.
Once or twice before the Robsons came into the neighbourhood, an
idea had crossed her mind that possibly the quiet, habitual way in
which she and Philip lived together, might drift them into matrimony
at some distant period; and she could not bear the humble advances
which Coulson, Philip's fellow-lodger, sometimes made. They seemed
to disgust her with him.

But after the Robsons settled at Haytersbank, Philip's evenings were
so often spent there that any unconscious hopes Hester might,
unawares, have entertained, died away. At first she had felt a pang
akin to jealousy when she heard of Sylvia, the little cousin, who
was passing out of childhood into womanhood. Once--early in those
days--she had ventured to ask Philip what Sylvia was like. Philip
had not warmed up at the question, and had given rather a dry
catalogue of her features, hair, and height, but Hester, almost to
her own surprise, persevered, and jerked out the final question.

'Is she pretty?'

Philip's sallow cheek grew deeper by two or three shades; but he
answered with a tone of indifference,--

'I believe some folks think her so.'

'But do you?' persevered Hester, in spite of her being aware that he
somehow disliked the question.

'There's no need for talking o' such things,' he answered, with
abrupt displeasure.

Hester silenced her curiosity from that time. But her heart was not
quite at ease, and she kept on wondering whether Philip thought his
little cousin pretty until she saw her and him together, on that
occasi