ly more to occupy her than to
listen for what society would say. As to not being able to take care of
herself and behave so that the slightest indignity to her would never be
ventured upon, the bare mention of such a possibility was received by
Hester with a wrath which bordered on fierceness, and for the most part
silenced her opponents effectually. Any displeasure which Annie Millar
had displayed on a similar supposition was mild by comparison.

Hester was not an only child. Mrs. Jennings had sons, all in the army or
navy, the mother was proud to say; but none of them in those days of
competitive examinations and expensive living was high enough up in the
service to be able to help his mother. On the contrary, grown men, with
men's callings, as they were, they found themselves under the necessity
of taking help from her. There were also other daughters besides Hester
married to men in professions as unexceptionable as those of their
brothers-in-law, but neither were they in circumstances which could make
them feel justified in granting the smallest subsidy to Mrs. Jennings.
Only Hester toiled for her mother at every moment which she could take
from her studies and her natural rest. Yet the two women, who had dwelt
under the same roof since Hester's babyhood, who were united by the
strongest and most sacred tie, were without one taste in common, were
irreconcilably different in every mode of thought and impulse of
feeling, were only alike in each being well-intentioned and desirous of
fulfilling her intuitions and justifying her beliefs. Being wise, the
pair agreed to differ. But oh! the pity of it where aims, ideals and
standards, hopes and fears, were all equally wide apart.

Mrs. Jennings did not interfere with Hester's freedom farther than she
could help. Hester had her own engagements, her own circle of friends.

It may not surprise those who are acquainted with the various versions
of Hester Jennings to be met with in this generation, that she was a
red-hot radical in contrast to her mother's conservatism--well-nigh a
_communiste_, to whom woman's rights and wrongs meant a burning question
of the day, which, next to her love of art, came very near to her heart.
She was almost powerless to assist her sister women, so overworked was
she on her own account, but whenever she could snatch a moment half a
dozen clubs and societies claimed her for their own. She had really a
wide personal knowledge of the working-women