and Mr.
Harvey attacked _The Idyll of East London_, and showed it up entirely,
and poor little me had to stand up for her against them all."

"She would never do that," said Hester, tranquilly. "She might perhaps
have said, 'The writer is a friend of mine. I must stand up for her.'
But she would never have gone beyond saying it to doing it."

"Hester," exclaimed Mrs. Gresley, feeling that she might just as well
have remained a spinster if she was to be thus ignored in her own house,
"I can't think how you can allow your jealousy of Sybell Loftus, for I
can attribute it to nothing else, to carry you so far."

"Perhaps it had better carry me into the garden," said Hester, rising
with the others. "You must forgive me if I spoke irritably. I have a
racking headache."

"She looks ill," said her brother, following Hester's figure with
affectionate solicitude, as she passed the window a moment later.

"And yet she does next to nothing," said the hard-worked little wife,
intercepting the glance. "I always thought she wrote her stories in the
morning. I know she is never about if the Pratt girls call to see her
before luncheon. Yet when I ran up to her room yesterday morning to ask
her to take Mary's music, as Fraeulein had the headache"--(Mrs. Gresley
always spoke of "the headache" and "the toothache")--"she was lying on
her bed doing nothing at all."

"She is very unaccountable," said Mr. Gresley. "Still, I can make
allowance for the artistic temperament. I share it to a certain degree.
Poor Hester. She is a spoiled child."

"Indeed, James, she is. And she has an enormous opinion of herself. For
my part, I think the Bishop is to blame for making so much of her. Have
you never noticed how different she is when he is here, so gay and
talkative, and when we are alone she hardly says a word for days
together, except to the children?"

"She talked more when she first came," said Mr. Gresley. "But when she
found I made it a rule to discourage argument"--(by argument Mr. Gresley
meant difference of opinion)--"she seemed gradually to lose interest in
conversation. Yet I have heard the Bishop speak of her as a brilliant
talker. And Lord Newhaven asked me last spring how I liked having a
celebrity for a sister. A celebrity! Why, half the people in Middleshire
don't even know of Hester's existence." And the author of "Modern
Dissent" frowned.

"That was a hit at you, my dear," said Mrs. Gresley. "It was just after
your pamphle