wn.

"Then are love and sympathy nothing?" she said. "Those are the real
gifts. If I were rich to-morrow I should look to you just as I do now
for the things which money can't buy. And those are the
things"--Rachel's voice shook--"which you have always given me, and
which I can't do without. You feel my poverty more than I do myself. It
crushed me at first when I could not support myself. Now that I can--and
in everything except money I am very rich--I am comparatively happy."

There was a long silence.

"Perhaps," said Rachel at last, with difficulty, "if I had remained an
heiress Mr. Tristram might have married me. I feel nearly sure he would
have married me. In that case I lost my money only just in time to
prevent a much greater misfortune, and I am glad I am as I am."

Rachel remembered that conversation often in after-years with a sense of
thankfulness that for once she, who was so reticent, had let Hester see
how dear she was to her.

The two girls stood long together cheek against cheek.

And as Hester leaned against Rachel the yearning of her soul towards her
suddenly lit up something which had long lain colossal, but
inapprehended, in the depths of her mind. Her paroxysm of despair at her
own powerlessness was followed by a lightning flash of self-revelation.
She saw, as in a dream, terrible, beautiful, inaccessible, but distinct,
where her power lay, of which restless bewildering hints had so often
mocked her. She had but to touch the houses and they would fall down.
She held her hands tightly together lest she should do it. The strength
as of an infinite ocean swept in beneath her weakness, and bore it upon
its surface like a leaf.

"You must go home," said Rachel gently, remembering Lady Susan's
punctual habits.

Hester kissed her absently and went out into the new world which had
been pressing upon her all her life, the gate of which Love had opened
for her. For Love has many keys besides that of her own dwelling. Some
who know her slightly affirm that she can only open her own cheap patent
padlock with a secret word on it that everybody knows. But some who know
her better hold that hers is the master-key which will one day turn all
the locks in all the world.

* * * * *

A year later Hester's first book, _An Idyll of East London_, was reaping
its harvest of astonished indignation and admiration, and her
acquaintances--not her friends--were still wondering how she