"no one but miss hester gould," the old nurse had answered, in reply to robert streightley's question; and he had never bestowed a thought upon the answer. what was hester gould to him, or he to hester gould? to the first section of this inquiry the present chapter will furnish a reply; to the second, time only; time, just then busy with the beginning of many complications in the life of a man whose career had been singularly even, uneventful, and interesting only so far as it had developed his abilities and the results of their employment.

the young lady, whose brief parley with alice had simply consisted of the words reported to her master and darling by the old nurse, had known the unpretending little family at brixton for several years, and had been, for the chief of that number, intimate with mrs. streightley and her daughter ellen. this intimacy, however, was one-sided; hester gould was completely in the harmless and unimportant confidence of the two ladies, but they were not in hers. this was no treacherous, insidious distinction, no deliberate preference of other friends, on hester gould's part; for she was a woman who gave her confidence to no one; a woman of a self-sufficing nature, and the safest possible confidante, because she never felt sufficiently interested in any one person to betray another for his or her sake. no one could justly accuse hester gould of flattery or fawning, yet she induced her acquaintances to conceive enthusiastic friendships for her, and to tell her their most intimate concerns, to discover that she was indispensable to their comfort, and the dearest creature in the world; to declare that they did not know what they should do without her, and that her advice was always the best. how did the girl, without descending to the despicable meanness of toadyism, achieve popularity in her narrow sphere, though she was undeniably handsome, and that too after a fashion that was capable of development into downright beauty of a high type, if circumstances had been more favourable to her? she achieved it by "masterly inactivity." whether she had thought over the life that lay before her, had formed a philosophy of her own, and decided upon a line of conduct as the result of her meditations, before she left the second-rate boarding-school at peckham, where she had acquired all the technical education she possessed, it would be impossible to say, and the supposition that she had done so appears unnatural and far-fetched. it was probably partly by the instinct of native shrewdness, and partly by the exercise of precocious powers of observation, that hester gould discovered that the great art of making herself agreeable consisted in letting her friends talk to her of themselves, without claiming a reciprocal right. however that may have been, she observed as a rule strict reticence concerning her own affairs, and endured with smiling patience, paying her friends that subtlest of compliments, undivided attention; and displaying interest, which if not demonstrative was practical, in the fullest details concerning theirs. she was of a cold, silent, repressed nature, not exactly unamiable or false; but a woman who might become either under circumstances more disadvantageous than hers were at present, or might expand under favourable and fostering influences into a higher type of womanhood than she either physically or intellectually indicated now.

hester gould was a handsome woman at twenty, a period of life which she had reached only a few days before that on which she had made affectionate inquiries for ellen streightley; but she would probably be a handsomer woman at thirty, and if she then fulfilled the latent promise of beauty, would have a fair chance of retaining it long past the period at which the loveliness of women, in all but very exceptional cases, ceases to be a fact, and becomes a memory. she was tall and full-formed; but as yet she wanted gracefulness. she had handsome features and fine keen dark eyes; but her face had not sufficient colour, and her eyes had too little depth; they lacked intensity; not that they were shifty and uncertain, but that they bore the vague, absent expression which tells of discontent, not particular but general. looking attentively at hester gould, one given to studying character in faces would know that there was incongruity between the actual and the potential position of the girl. without restlessness, without impatience, always ruled by common sense, she seemed to be a person who had something in view, which if not a firm resolve, was at least a cherished purpose. the tenor of her life was even and simple enough, and there was nothing remarkable in her history. her parents had been plain people: her father, secretary to an old-established insurance office, had patronised the concern to the extent of securing a decent sum for the maintenance of his sister and only child. her mother, who had "disobliged her family," as the phrase is, by her marriage, had died when hester was a baby; and the only member of the disobliged family now living was a wealthy shipowner, who had declined to take any notice of the sister who had disgraced herself by wedding a poor man. mr. gould came of parents quite as well-born as his wife's: they were all of the respectable tradesman class; but their standard was one of money value, and he did not come up to it. they might have helped him to approach it, without inconveniencing themselves; but they did not consider or care about that, and the breach had been complete; indeed it had soon become irremediable; for mrs. gould had survived her marriage only four years, and had died, taking her infant son with her away from all family quarrels and human affairs. hester grew up, under the kindly, timid, narrow-minded charge of her aunt; a meek spinster given to the perusal and distribution of tracts, and to the frequentation of meeting-houses where the doctrine was strong and the preaching unctuous. the child became "too much" for her timid aunt and her depressed father at an early period of her existence, and even rebelled against the vicarious authority of miss gould's favourite "ministers;" so she was sent to school, and there also she gave no little trouble for a time. but common sense was always hester's strong point; and it came to her assistance. school was far from pleasant, she reflected, but home was worse; and as she had no power to provide herself with a third alternative at present, she would abide by the lesser of two evils, and turn it to all the advantage she could. the result of this rational conclusion was that hester gould profited to the utmost by the limited quantity and mediocre quality of the education administered at laburnum lodge, and acquired at least a foundation on which to build afterwards according to her taste.

the discretion evinced by the schoolgirl was a clue to her character. no one was more popular among the small and far from distinguished community; but only the girls whose social position was a little higher than her own could claim hester as an intimate friend. the gushing nonsense of school friendships had little attraction for her, and she contracted none that she did not contemplate maintaining when the association which had produced them should have ceased. hester was not brilliantly clever, there was not the least soup?on of genius about her; but she was certainly a superior person in intellect, in manners, and in appearance, to the companions of her studies, the sharers of her school life, in that most unbearable kind of intimacy which means contact without companionship. when she went home for the holidays, things were not much better. she had been fond of her father in a quiet way, though she had taken his intellectual measure pretty accurately, and almost as as soon as she had arrived at the conclusion that their life was on a dull mean scale, had recognised his inability to elevate or enliven it.

"we should grub on like this all our lives, if it depended on him," the girl had said to herself in emphatic, if not elegant soliloquy; and there had been no wilful disrespect to the honest, humdrum, unobservant father in the remark, only hester's unclouded perception and resolute custom of telling herself the truth. when she was a little over fifteen years old her father died, and she had to endure, in addition to her natural grief, which was unfeigned and sore, a declension in position, and a narrowing of the narrow income, which at its best she had regarded with impatience, very keen though never expressed, or permitted to escape her by so much as a gesture. her aunt moved into a smaller house in an inferior situation, discharged one of the two female servants who had composed their modest establishment, and told hester she hoped she had profited sufficiently by her music and singing lessons to go on without a master, for she could no longer afford to continue them.

hester bore the alteration with apparent equanimity, but she took a resolution and acted upon it. she was a musician by nature, and music was the one branch of study to which she had taken with avidity, and which she had pursued with unrelaxed industry. she went to the schoolmistress (the establishment had not yet attained to the distinction of possessing a "lady principal"), and asked her to put her in the immediately-to-be-vacated place of a pupil-teacher, allowing her to continue her own music and singing lessons as an equivalent for her services. the proposition took miss nickson by surprise; but she knew hester gould's abilities and popularity, and though she did not like the girl particularly, she trusted her fully. it never occurred to the schoolmistress--a simple woman, and a favourable specimen of a generally disagreeable class--that hester had not made the proposition at her aunt's suggestion, while that young lady contented herself with informing miss lavinia gould by letter of what she had done. "i don't lose caste by it here, where they all know me and i have been on equal terms with them," thought hester; "and my only chance of getting out of our odious mean existence is by making all i can of such education as i can get. i shall have to teach anyhow, and i can fit myself for teaching a better class of people here." it was not a stupid calculation for so young a head, and it turned out perfectly correct. hester did not lose caste when her schoolfellows became her pupils, and her teachers in their turn took additional pains with her when they knew the object with which she was learning.

among hester's intimates for several of her school years was ellen streightley, a girl who loved and worshipped one who was in most respects her opposite with a kind of enthusiasm not rare among unworldly natures, in which the intellect is much less powerful than the feelings. the boarding-school at peckham was not altogether such an establishment as miss streightley should have been kept at beyond the period of primary instruction; but her mother was a shy, gentle, unworldly woman, who did not understand any thing about social ambition, and provided she found her daughter brought up in sound morals and good manners would not have considered for a moment whether her associates were of a higher class than her own, or came of richer or poorer people. mrs. streightley had never changed her mode of life in accordance with her increased means; she had but a narrow circle, which was, however, quite satisfactory to her, and she regarded the commercial and financial magnates with whom her son associated on the rare occasions of his "going into society," as completely out of the sphere of herself and her daughter. this daughter was very dear to her; a tranquil, gentle, congenial companion, a child who had never given her an hour's true anxiety in her life, and had even had the measles and the whooping-cough much more lightly and favourably than other children. ellen streightley was short, slight, and extremely fair. she was not exactly pretty, but the calm sweetness of her face was very winning, and the perfect candour and gentleness which sat upon her smooth forehead and looked out of her full blue eyes had an unwearying charm for those who knew how true these indications were of the mind and heart within. ellen streightley loved her mother and her brother robert with all the devotion and dutifulness of her nature; but hester gould she loved with enthusiasm in addition. from the first hester's strong mind had charmed and swayed her, and the imagination of the girl, not very vivid and but rarely awakened, had surrounded her with a halo of its weaving. had hester's moral nature been much or openly defective, she never would have won this tribute of love and worship from ellen streightley, who had good sense to come in aid of her high principle, and her perfect purity of heart, but who succumbed to the superiority of hester with a delighted submission. when they were children together, hester's word had been the other's law, and had any thing been needed to perfect her love and admiration, hester's conduct in voluntarily assuming the position of pupil-teacher in order that her aunt might suffer as little as possible from their narrow circumstances would have supplied their complement. there was no falsehood in this statement, made by hester to her friend. it was quite true, only it was not the whole of her motive, but a part, and not the chief part of it.

and hester--what was her share in this strict and loving alliance? decidedly she liked ellen streightley very much, and she prized highly, without comprehending it altogether, the enthusiastic affection of which she was the object, the unreserved confidence of which she was the recipient. she liked the saturdays and sundays which she passed at mrs. streightley's house at brixton, when ellen's schooldays had come to a conclusion, and her friend coaxed miss lavinia gould to spare hester to her; a request that lady did not hesitate to grant, as she had very little need of her niece's society; her "sabbaths," as she punctiliously called them, being passed in hot untiring chase of popular preachers, according to her notions of popularity and estimate of preachers. she declined to join the family party on sundays, firstly on sabbatarian principles, secondly because the streightleys were "church of england," and she hated that persuasion only a little less than the roman communion, and the opposition chapel which set itself against the ministrations of her own particular pastor and saint, the rev. malachy farrell, a powerful controversialist, and a convert from the romish heresy and abomination of desolation. ellen had enjoined her mother to exert herself to "make a connection" for hester, when her days of pupil-teachership came to a conclusion; that lady had obediently exerted herself; miss nickson had done as much for the girl, with whom she had never had occasion to find a fault, but who, she rather remorsefully admitted to herself, had never "gained on her" in all the years of their association; and hester, at twenty years old, when we meet her first, was established as a teacher of music, with a respectable connection, and occupied with her aunt a pretty small house near the brixton villa, which, in elegance and habitableness was a considerable improvement on that in which her father had lived and died.

ellen streightley had never cooled or wavered in her love for hester; and her mother liked the girl very much, though she sometimes had an uncomfortable sort of feeling that she did not understand her perfectly, that hester might perhaps be "too much" for her and ellen, if she should think it worth her while to be so. but the kind lady was little given to mental exercises of any troublesome description, and never thought of analysing her sensations. that she was an exceptional person, singularly unsuspicious, and unlike mothers in general, may surely be conceded, when it is stated that it never occurred to her to think that hester might possibly be a dangerous intimate for robert, her beloved and precious son, or could cherish any design or idea whereof he made part. mrs. streightley loved her son better than she loved ellen; a preference which the girl accepted as a matter of course, and believed to be perfectly just and well founded. he was robert, their robert, the most important, the most beloved of men, and of course it was all right; and the two women did but follow the example of thousands of their sex, whose perceptions and ideas are confined within a small circle, and whose social sphere and enjoyments resemble a mill, and the going round therein performed by patient and tolerably well-fed beasts. robert was an amiable man on the whole; he gave no more trouble in the household than was inseparable from the circumstance that he was a man and "didn't understand things," as the household phrase has it, and he loved his mother devotedly, and ellen very much indeed. it had never occurred to him that her life was a dull one, and that he was rich enough to make it a very different life, if he would but waken up and look away from his counting-house, learn sympathy, and consider what was the real meaning and worth of money. he had never thought of the light and colour, the stir and healthful pleasure he might diffuse through the decorous, comfortable, neutral-tinted existence of the brixton villa; he had never noticed their absence; and as he had no notion of the life led by other girls, on whom money was lavishly expended, and for whose delectation whole household systems were organised, there was no standard of comparison in his mind. he was so much older than his sister, so much nearer his mother's age than hers, that while perfect affection had always subsisted between them, it had not been accompanied with much intimacy, and his confidences, which were wholly confined to business matters, had been restricted to his mother, on whose mind it had never dawned that any improvement in their household affairs could be desirable, who had never looked or desired to look outside the circle in which she moved, and who would have received any suggestion of an increase of ellen's social opportunities and enjoyments with entire incredulity. to her ellen was as yet little more than a child; and though if he had been asked what was her age, and had paused to think the matter over, robert would have perceived the absurdity of so regarding a girl of nineteen, by no means childish of her years, though simple and unworldly as few children are in these progressive days, he practically shared her delusion.

robert was almost as much accustomed to see hester gould as he was to see ellen. the girls were together as much as possible, due consideration being had to hester's occupations, and the social duties and privileges of her "connection," which she never neglected. she led an infinitely pleasanter life than did ellen; for she was very popular among her pupils, and many of their number contrived to extend to her their own amusements and pleasures. she had not much leisure, but she was under no painful necessity to overwork herself; her occupation need never degenerate into slavery, and such hours as she could devote to recreation she could always find recreation to fill. she possessed perfect health and an even temper; not according to the cynical saying, "a good digestion and a bad heart,"--not yet, at least. up to the present time nothing in hester's conduct had indicated badness of heart; a little coldness perhaps, but unperceived, and resolution whose inflexibility might have been suspected, but that her resolves had all been in the direction of right and duty. if any body had asked robert streightley whether he was acquainted with miss hester gould, he would have unhesitatingly replied that he knew her most intimately--as well as his own sister; and he would have made such an answer in perfectly good faith. it would not have been true, nevertheless. if any one had asked hester gould whether she knew robert streightley, she would have replied that he was an acquaintance of hers, being the brother of one of her dearest friends--(hester would not have said her "dearest friend," for such a sweeping phrase might have been repeated to her detriment); and she would have said it in a tone calculated to convince the questioner that her acquaintance with mr. streightley was of the most formal and conventional kind. in this instance the reply would only have had the exterior of truth, for no one in the world--certainly not the man himself--knew robert streightley as well, as thoroughly as hester gould knew him. not his sister, who would talk cheerily about her brother, and extol his genius, his temper, and his personal appearance; not his mother, who would tell hester a dozen times in a week that he had never caused her an hour's anxiety, and who never admitted that he had a fault, except his tiresome-objection to sitting for his photograph; not the old nurse, who would scold robert freely enough herself, but in whose hearing no one would have had the boldness to declare him subject to the faults, the misfortunes, or the maladies of humanity. it was a fortunate circumstance that hester gould had perfectly read robert streightley's character, and had, without any thing like impertinent inquisitiveness, acquired a thorough knowledge of the family history and his personal antecedents; for, some time before the period of her friend's visit to yorkshire, hester gould had made up her mind that she would marry robert streightley if possible, and ellen's last letter had induced her to think of doing so at an earlier period than she had previously contemplated.

"i don't know that ellen's marriage will not be the best thing that could possibly happen for me," said hester to herself as she walked briskly away from robert streightley's house, after her parley with old alice. "of course her brother won't oppose it,--though the girl is a greater fool than i thought her, to marry a man with no greater ambition than to spend his life among filthy savages, teaching them a religion entirely unsuitable to their condition of life and status in creation. i hope they won't eat him--at least i hope they won't eat her; but she will be better away--i should never succeed in curing her of brixton ways, and she has really no tastes to be developed. it will be a good opportunity, when she will be divided between love for her decimus--what a name to be in love with!--and distress at leaving her mother, to furnish her with a suggestion concerning a substitute: it must come entirely from her, of course."

thus thinking, hester gould reached home. she greeted aunt lavinia kindly; she was scrupulously dutiful and attentive to her wishes, except in respect to meetings and ministers;--sat down cheerfully to her tea, during which meal she quite enlivened the pensive spinster by her gaiety, and then went to her piano for what she called a "real good practice." hour after hour she sat there, filling the room and the house with music; and at length she sang, at her aunt's request, the very same song--of a trifling kind, which hester rather despised, but sang because it was popular--with which katherine guyon was at the selfsame hour achieving the "final pulverisation" of robert streightley's heart.