on her return.

When it was published she should give Minna a new sofa for the
drawing-room, and Fraeulein a fur boa and muff, and Miss Brown a
type-writer for her G.F.S. work, and Abel a barometer, and each of the
servants a new gown, and James those four enormous volumes of Pusey for
which his soul yearned. And what should she give Rachel--dear Rachel?
Ah! What need to give her anything? The book itself was hers. Was it not
dedicated to her? And she would make her home with Rachel for the
present, as the Bishop advised, as Rachel had so urgently begged her to
do.

"And we will go abroad together after Christmas as she suggests," said
Hester to herself. "We will go to Madeira, or one of those warm places
where one can sit like a cat in the sun, and do nothing, nothing,
nothing, from morning till night. I used to be so afraid of going back
to Warpington, but now that the time is coming to an end I am sure I
shall not irritate them so much. And Minna will be glad. One can always
manage if it is only for a fixed time. And they shall not be the losers
by my leaving them. I will put by the money for my little Regie. I shall
feel parting with him."

The sun was setting as she reached Warpington. All was gray, the church
tower, the trees, the pointed gables of the Vicarage, set small
together, as in a Christmas card, against the still red sky. It only
needed "Peace and Good-will" and a robin in the foreground to be
complete. The stream was the only thing that moved, with its shimmering
mesh of fire-tipped ripples fleeing into the darkness of the reeds. The
little bridge, so vulgar in every-day life, leaned a mystery of darkness
over a mystery of light. The white frost held the meadows, and binding
them to the gray house and church and bare trees was a thin floating
ribbon of--was it mist or smoke? In her own window a faint light
wavered. They had lit a fire in her room. Hester's heart warmed to her
sister-in-law at that little token of care and welcome. Minna should
have all her flowers, except one small bunch for Fraeulein. In another
moment she was ringing the bell, and Emma's smiling red face appeared
behind the glass door.

Hester ran past her into the drawing-room. Mrs. Gresley was sitting near
the fire with the old baby beside her. She returned Hester's kiss
somewhat nervously. She looked a little frightened.

The old baby, luxuriously seated in his own little arm-chair, rose, and
holding it firmly against his sm