ith 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 al