l 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."

"I suppose the cooking is vile?"

"I don't know. I never noticed what I ate till I came here, so I can't
judge. Perhaps it is not very good. But the dreadful part is that I
should mind. I could not have believed it of myself. James and Minna
never say anything, but I know it vexes them, as of course it must."

Rachel looked critically at Hester's innocent, childlike face. When
Hester was not a cultivated woman of the world she was a child. There
was, alas! no medium in her character. Rachel noticed how thin her face
and hands had become, and the strained look in the eyes. The faint color
in her cheek had a violet tinge.

She did not waste words on the cookery question. She saw plainly enough
that Hester's weak health was slipping further down the hill.

"And all this time you have been working?"

"If you call it working. I used to call it so once, but I never do now.
Yes, I manage about four hours a day. I have made another pleasant
discovery about myself--that I have the temper of a fiend if I am
interrupted."

"But surely you told the Gresleys when first you came that you must not
be interrupted at certain hours?"

"I did. I did. But, of course--it is very natural--they think that
rather self-important and silly. I am thought very silly here, Rachel.
And James does not mind being interrupted in writing his sermons. And
the Pratts have got the habit of running in in the mornings."

"Who on earth are the Pratts?"

"They are what _they_ call 'county people.' Their father made a fortune
in oil, and built a house covered with turrets near here a few years
ago. I used to know Captain Pratt, the son, very slightly in London. I
never would dance with him. He used to come to our 'At Homes,' but he
was never asked to dinner. He is a great 'parti' among a certain set
down here. His mother and sisters were very kind to me when I came, but
I was not so accustomed then as I am now to be treated familiarly and
called 'Hessie,' which no one has ever called me before, and I am afraid
I was not so responsive as I see now I ough