the judgment passed by robert streightley on hester gould, when he had critically examined her bearing under the novel and trying circumstances of her heiress-ship, was amply borne out by her subsequent conduct. she was a decided success; and though totally unknown to the members of the great world in which she had now taken her place, so that they had no opportunity of comparing her as she was in the present with what she had been in the past, her simplicity of manners, her unassuming tranquillity, as free from deprecation as from assertion, received a tribute of genuine admiration. miss gould was as much alive to the little touch of impertinence in this general sentiment as she was to its usefulness and agreeability; but she enjoyed the latter, and did not resent the former.

"they are wonderfully kind and polite, and all that," she said one day to lady henmarsh, while she was entering a long list of new names and addresses in her visiting-book; "but it amuses me a little to observe that not one of them can quite conceal her surprise at discovering that i look and behave like a lady. how i delight in such na?veté! they let me see, without the least disguise, that they expect me to be vulgar and underbred, but visit me because i am rich and certified by you."

"it's the way of the world, my dear hester," said her friend; "and neither you nor i will change it, be assured."

"i don't want to change it, for my part," said hester; "it suits me very well as it is."

this gay colloquy took place shortly after miss gould had taken possession of her handsome and perfectly-appointed house at palace gardens. the programme agreed upon at middlemeads had been faithfully carried out, and the intercourse between portland place and palace gardens was frequent and affectionate. miss gould demeaned herself towards robert and his wife with exemplary tact and propriety. not the keenest and closest observer could have divined that she possessed a knowledge of the affairs of the one wholly unshared by the other, and that she had succeeded, by minute investigation and the art of inductive reasoning, at an understanding of the means by which the marriage which had thwarted her plans, and given her the first shock she had ever experienced of the humiliation of defeat, had been brought about, almost as clear as that possessed by the principals in the transaction. the firmness, the indifference, and the decision of hester gould's character had much attraction for katharine, who found pleasure and amusement in watching that young lady's method of dealing with her novel position, and to whose proud nature the coolness and self-possession of hester were peculiarly congenial. they were not confidential with each other; but then, how could they have been so? katharine had a secret in her life whose concealment had been of such immense importance to her that she had taken the one step which determines a woman's whole existence in order to secure that concealment. outside that she had no confidences to bestow. on hester's side there was still less frankness in their intercourse; but she would not have been confidential with katharine, had there been no hidden link between them; she had never trusted any one fully. the nearest approach she had ever made or permitted to a confidential intimacy had been in mr. thacker's case; and she had begun to repent of even that limited démarche lately, since that gentleman had hinted at the hopes to which it had given rise.

"i might have found out all he has told me for myself, if i had only waited," she said in vexed soliloquy; "if i had only had patience, i need not have wanted him at all, and now there's no saying how troublesome he may think fit to be."

in this misgiving hester gould was entirely mistaken, and her entertaining it showed that she had not read mr. thacker with her accustomed thoroughness and infallibility. daniel knew when miss gould refused him, in the matter-of-fact and reasonable fashion she had done, that she was perfectly in earnest, clearly in the right, and immutable in her resolution. he had no more notion of annoying her with a renewal of his addresses than he had of resenting their rejection. he must have liked her very much, and have seen many advantages in addition to its pecuniary attractions in the scheme of such a marriage; for mr. daniel thacker was as little of a marrying-man as any individual in london, but he was quite incapable of such a bêtise as persisting in an unwelcome suit, or exhibiting, indeed of feeling, the slightest offence. hester gould was the sort of woman, being an heiress, whom it would have been pleasant and advisable to marry; but as such an arrangement was not practicable, he fell back upon the other and less hazardous alternative--that of fostering and preserving confidential relations with her. if she was not to be his wife--and he knew the moment she said "no" that that was not to be--she should remain his very good friend, in the real meaning of the term. he believed he had found out what her game had been in the past (that game she had lost, as it seemed to him, by waiting too confidently); he acknowledged that he did not know the nature of that which she meant to play in the future; but if any one was ever to know it, he would be that person, with her consent or without it. he had felt at once the change that had come over her after his luckless proposal; he had discerned her imperfect appreciation of his savoir faire; but he was neither offended nor afraid. he knew he could safely trust his own manner and time to convince her that he had accepted her decision as final, that she had no importunity to fear on his part.

the result had fully justified mr. thacker's anticipations, and his relations with hester were permanently established on a footing of as much mutual reliance as was possible to the nature of either, and the frank interchange of mutual good services. mr. thacker was unfeignedly pleased when he learned from the voice of rumour that the shipowner's heiress was becoming quite the fashion, and when he perceived by her brightened expression, her fresher colour, and the added vivacity of her manner and bearing, that miss gould entered with sincere enjoyment into the pleasures within her reach. a youth of well-concealed ambition, of self-repression, of toil, had not hardened and deadened and narrowed her, as it might have done a weaker nature; there was no active poison of cynicism in her knowledge of the world; and her coolheadedness, while it secured her from deception, did not err on the joyless side of utter disbelief. she enjoyed life as a connoisseur, not as an enthusiast--as an epicure, not as a gourmand; but she did enjoy it both well and wisely.

circumstances favoured miss gould very decidedly. she was sufficiently attractive to be admired by men, and not so aggressively beautiful as to be hated by women. she did not in the least overrate her own personal charms, or the powers of her mind; but she knew that she was good-looking and clever enough to be admired in society, independently of the wealth which had been her passport into it; while other women would console themselves for her success, and explain it on the grounds of that wealth solely. she had found herself admitted at once into the best of the society in which katharine guyon had moved before her marriage, and the circle was constantly expanding. lady henmarsh was more popular as the chaperone of a well-looking and richly-dowered heiress than as the chaperone of a well-connected beauty with no money, and a detrimental though pleasant papa. miss guyon's remarkably sensible and commendable marriage had also shed reflected glory upon lady henmarsh; and as the dangerous beauty was dangerous no longer, but, on the contrary, a decided acquisition, being excessively rich, and possessing a praiseworthy taste for expensive hospitalities, all the petty jealousies and envies excited by miss guyon were forgiven to "that dear creature mrs. streightley."

thus the world was to all seeming very fair and bright before the two young women whom a chance had brought together, to be thenceforth inextricably intermingled in each other's lives.

it belonged to the well-regulated completeness of hester gould's character, to the firmness of a woman in whom there was nothing little, however much there might be that was bad, that she never neglected a friend, never forgot a kindness, never overlooked a former claim on her consideration or gratitude. she was incapable of the meanness of disregarding those who had aided her when her lot was one of poverty and obscurity, and equally incapable of the impertinence of patronage. she felt gratitude, and she displayed it simply, genuinely, appropriately, with the true and delicate tact which was one of the finer features of her character. she had provided for the comfort of aunt lavinia as carefully as for her own in the arrangements of the handsome house, which the good old lady regarded with mingled admiration and misgiving. she had explained to her aunt that all the requirements of the world would be fulfilled by the arrangements into which she had entered with lady henmarsh; that she would never be expected to do violence to her principles by partaking of the dangerous and delusive delights to which her niece's novel position afforded her access; and she gave her carte-blanche for as many entertainments of the substantial-tea description, which they particularly affected, as her favourite "ministers" could be prevailed on to accept. nor was her attention to her aunt limited to such formal provisions for her comfort. no pleasure, no hurry, no press of engagements, none of the flutter of popularity and general request into which miss gould soon fell, ever induced her to neglect the commonplace but worthy woman who had befriended her youth and shared her evil days. a portion of every morning was spent with aunt lavinia; and a visit to the quiet spinster preceded invariably the fulfilment of her evening engagements, over which her aunt would sigh furtively, and concerning which she reposed many mournful confidences and misgivings in sundry clerical breasts, without, however, feeling any distressingly deep conviction of the enormity of her niece's behaviour. hester's old school-mistress had not been forgotten. the modest sum which the labour of half a lifetime had painfully accumulated, but which had yet some years to gather ere it could suffice for even such a humble maintenance as the well-nigh worn-out teacher longed for, was supplemented by the old pupil, to whom miss nickson never "could take;" and laburnum lodge, with the inky and lacerated desks, the dreary fly-blown maps, and the dreadful jangling rattletrap pianos, was disposed of by private contract. once every week hester gould's brougham might be seen before the little gate of a pretty little cottage at fulham; and hester's figure, grown graceful now, and clad in elegant attire, might be recognised seated in the little parlour-window, as she gave an hour of the time on which society made insatiable demands to the woman who had done her duty to the orphan girl for conscience' sake.

she was no less considerate of those to whom her former obligations were of another kind, and must be redeemed in a different way. among their number were the hampstead hebrews, rachel and rebecca thacker, and ellen streightley. to the dark-browed sisters of her confidential friend miss gould extended every social advantage within her power to compass for them. they found their lives wonderfully brightened, and their ideas much expanded under hester's influence; and they became more enthusiastically fond of her than ever.

ellen streightley had become less enthusiastic about katharine since she had been in town. the constant stir, the fashionable jargon, the incessant familiar mention of places, and persons, and circumstances, all foreign to her knowledge, her tastes, and her ideas, troubled and confused her. the same sort of thing had existed at middlemeads indeed, but on a lesser scale; and then ellen had had hester to support her, and she had not felt so insignificant, so lost, as she felt now, in the ever-shifting, ever-thronging crowd in portland place. katharine was as kind to her as ever, but she had no time to occupy herself with her; and the romantic vision of sisterly confidence, which had made her sojourn at middlemeads delightful to ellen, vanished away before the realism of the tumultuous frivolity of london life. ellen had been enchanted with middlemeads, but the house in portland place alarmed more than it pleased her. she remembered penitently the warnings of decimus, who was soon coming back now--a circumstance which rendered them all the more terrible; she was chilled by the cool undemonstrative disapproval of her mother, who had but once entered her son's splendid house; she felt out of her place there; she was no longer at home with katharine as she had been at middlemeads; here she was only one of her sister-in-law's innumerable guests. but when ellen was with hester gould she had no such feeling. hester was quite unaltered, enjoyed as much leisure, and was as well disposed to share it with her friend as in the old days. hester's house was very handsome, and her establishment was very imposing, and in all things different from the brixton villa; but ellen was not dazzled and bewildered and put at a disadvantage by this difference, as she was by that of katharine's house and manner of living; she did not feel like a stranger at palace gardens. hester would receive her as calmly and pleasantly as though no afternoon engagements were in contemplation; would listen to all her simple, eager, unimpressive confidences with unwavering patience; would listen even to the outpourings of the honest missionary, who had a habit of digressing into sermons in his love-letters; in short, hester took a sound and serious interest in ellen's fate. miss gould excessively disliked the deportation of her friend to foreign, and probably cannibal, parts, and had given much consideration to the question whether it might not be possible to restrain the ardour of the rev. decimus by the mundane process of purchasing him a living at home. she had very little doubt of being able to procure him the advantages of heathen society, provided he did not insist on black pagans. down in staffordshire now, or in outlying london districts, or among the truly rural population of devonshire, he might surely find hideous ignorance, crime, and brutish unconsciousness of any thing but the lowest instincts of nature, flourishing as luxuriantly as in the feejee or the andaman islands. if the police reports spoke truth, there was room for the evolutions of a whole noble army of martyrs in picturesque and prosperous england; and decimus might be quite as useful, while ellen would be infinitely more safe. so hester thought about the matter, and came to the conclusion--excusable to her ignorance, and deducible from her experience of the ease with which every thing one wants can be had for money--that a living in british heathendom might be purchased. she did not impart her ideas to robert streightley, for she had her own reasons for knowing that he was not in a condition to receive any proposition involving the expenditure of ready-money with much favour just then; but she took mr. thacker into her confidence; and as that gentleman's religious persuasion prevented his feeling any scruples concerning a transaction of the kind, he undertook to buy a living for hester's unconscious protégé with as much alacrity and unconcern as he would have undertaken to hire an opera-box or to match a carriage-horse. "remember, if you want a presentation likely to fall in soon, you can't get one cheap," was his sole demurrer when miss gould explained, with the utmost n?iveté, the object of her wishes.

"i don't want to get it cheap, mr. thacker," replied miss gould. "provided it's comfortable, and there's enough to do to keep the pocket-apostle busy, and it's a wholesome place for ellen, and not dangerous in the way of strikes and mill-burnings,--i am content. i don't think i should like it too rural and picturesque, please, because the murders in places of that sort are always so very horrible."

"by jove! she gives me her directions as if it were a semi-detached villa with a good croquet-lawn she wanted," said mr. thacker, as he left hester's presence, having cheerfully undertaken the somewhat difficult task she had imposed upon him. "there's nothing on earth to equal the unreasonableness of even the most reasonable woman, and she certainly is that. not bad for an unconscious bit of satire either on christian notions in general,--would be nuts to some of our people, i daresay."

the season was at its height, and all london seemed abandoned to the pursuit of pleasure, almost as completely as the gay capital of france in its normal condition;--all london, that is to say, except the few hundreds of thousands who were suffering, dying, bearing all the ills and miseries of life, unseen and unheard by their more fortunate brethren, for whom the hour of calamity had not yet sounded. among the most fashionable of the fashionable réunions fixed for one brilliant night in june,--a night on which the fields and trees, the rivers and the gardens, were bathed in moonlight, and fanned by warm perfumed air; a night on which all nature was wrapped in a trance of delight,--was mrs. pendarvis's ball. her ball par excellence, be it observed; for she "opened her rooms" for dancing and music, for charades and kettledrums, for every conceivable purpose for which people could be gathered together, a most satisfactory number of times during the season. but this was a grand, an exceptional occasion,--a yearly event, which found record in the chronicles of the doings of the magnates of society, and formed an epoch in the history of each successive year.

katharine streightley and her husband were going to this ball. miss guyon had never missed the grand occasion since she had been "out," and its last recurrence had been memorable to her. she remembered it well as she sat under her maid's hands, and suffered herself to be attired far more splendidly than usual. she took a secret pleasure in forcing upon her own attention the contrast between the past and the present on this night. when her toilet was an accomplished fact, she stood before her glass and gazed upon her radiant figure, clothed in the richest white satin, and decorated with the valuable and quaintly-set diamonds which had been her mother's sole legacy to her, and a thrill of irrepressible triumph ran through her whole frame. she felt her own beauty as she had never felt it before; and she acknowledged that it was very pleasant to have the means of adorning it so lavishly, of adding so much to its power. her toilet-table was covered with cases in which gems of great value and beauty were nestled away in green-velvet niches, or displayed boastfully upon backgrounds of satin; but she had left them all undisturbed; her mother's diamonds should be her only ornaments that night. she desired her maid to bring more lights, and set them about the room, so as to show her her own figure in every point of view. the woman obeyed, with some surprise: this was not like mrs. streightley, who, though inordinately extravagant, was not practically vain, with the kind of vanity which impresses itself upon the attention of a waiting-woman.

she was looking over her white shoulder at the reflection in the long glass behind her, and her maid was standing by with a heap of soft white wrapping drapery on her arm, when robert knocked at the door of her dressing-room. she bade him "come in," in a pleasant voice, and he did so.

"the carriage is waiting. are you nearly ready?" he said. and then stopped short, and looked at her, literally dazzled with her exceeding beauty. thus he had seen her, a year ago, the first time he had dined at her father's house, dressed for a ball,--a ball at mrs. pendarvis's too,--a ball he had heard mentioned with a kind of hopeless envy. and she had gone downstairs to the carriage with him then. how well he remembered it, how distinctly he saw it all!--the head-dress she had added to her dinner-array, the white cloak--was this which he took from the maid and tenderly placed around her the same? he wondered. it looked like it; but it was another, ten times more costly than miss guyon had ever worn. again he saw the smile, the bow, from the corner of the carriage; again he heard mr. guyon's, "don't stand there, streightley; come in." and he felt like a man who has formerly seen in a dream things now passing before his eyes.

he could not speak before her servant; so he trusted to a glance to tell his wife how beautiful he thought her. he saw immediately that among the jewels she wore were none of his gifts, and he said, with some hesitation, "you do not honour my selection much, katharine. would not your bracelet go with your other ornaments, dear?"

a splendid serpent, a glittering mass of brilliants, with emerald eyes and protruded ruby tongue, lay on the table. he took it up as he spoke. katharine looked half-disposed to refuse; then she said gaily:

"never mind if it does contradict the quaint old roses and crescents; i'll wear it, robert. put it on, please,--there." and she held out her round white arm.

it was a trifling incident, but it meant a great deal to robert streightley; so much, that when they were seated in the carriage he thanked her with all the ardour of a lover. he told her he had never seen her half so beautiful; he reminded her--he who rarely dared to refer to the past--of the first time he had seen her dressed for a ball; and told her what a vision of beauty, what an enchantress she had appeared to him then,--what an unending spell she had cast upon him. there was no wrath, no bitterness in katharine's heart that night, though the remembrances evoked were all of the kind calculated to provoke them. time, and the unfailing, persevering love of this man,--love which she wondered at, and which had begun to touch her heart,--were working on her proud nature. she listened to him with a smile, with a faint, beautiful blush. she was glad that she had pleased him; it was not hard to do so: to wear a gorgeous ornament like that, and be thanked for it, was not a great sacrifice. to be so passionately admired by one's own husband was not unpleasant. katharine was quite aware that it was not a very common case. their carriage fell into the line; the light of many lamps was flitting about. she threw her cloak off the arm that bore the bracelet, and admired the splendid jewel, rippling with many-coloured light:

"it is extremely beautiful, robert," she said. "i like it better than any of your presents. it was your first, you know:"

he did know; and he also knew that this was the first, the very first word he had ever heard from his wife's lips which implied any sentiment concerning the past connected with him. a fresh tide of hope and joy welled up in his heart; and as she laid her hand lightly in his, and let it rest there until their turn had come, and the carriage drew up under the striped awning, surrounded with a gaping crowd of idlers collected to see the ball-goers, robert streightley was happier than he had ever been in his life before.

mrs. pendarvis's house was large, but the fashion and success of a ball appear to depend on the disregard of proportion between the room and company; and when it is said that this ball was brilliantly successful, it becomes unnecessary to state that it was excessively crowded. robert and katharine were detained for some time on the staircase, but the delay was not tedious; for they encountered a few scores of their acquaintances, and robert had the satisfaction, which in his present happy mood was unmixed, of observing the universal admiration excited by his lovely wife. at the top of the first flight of stairs there was a large recess, or rather room, beautifully hung with muslin and lace, and profusely decorated with flowers and odorous plants. a few route-seats were placed in this apartment, which was only a little less crowded than the dancing-rooms and the staircase. when robert and katharine reached this temporary harbour they found lady henmarsh in possession of one of the seats, and were immediately greeted by her with her accustomed warmth.

"miss gould is here, of course?" asked katharine.

"yes, she is dancing. how well you are looking, katharine! i see you are wearing your diamonds to-night; very becoming indeed; that serpent is beautiful. you have such taste, mrs. streightley."

"come, robert, we must really try to make our bow to mrs. pendarvis," said katharine rather impatiently; and they proceeded on their journey to the second floor. there they found mrs. pendarvis, and several of katharine's habitual partners. in a minute she had joined the throng in the dancing-room, and robert was engaged in the double task of squeezing himself into as small a space as possible along the doorjamb, and trying to follow his wife's graceful figure through the distracting evolutions of a valse. when he had succeeded in seeing her through two or three rounds, he thought he would go down and find lady henmarsh; and he was just moving for the purpose, when a lady and gentleman came past him from the dancing-room, and the lady stopped and held out her hand. it was hester gould, beautifully dressed, in the highest spirits, and looking unusually well, even handsome, as robert felt instinctively in the moment during which his eyes rested on her. it was only a moment, however, for they turned to her companion. the gentleman with whom miss gould had been dancing, with whom she was now going in search of lady henmarsh, was gordon frere.

katharine had seen him also. in a whirl of the valse her eyes had met his, as she and her partner passed him and his. she saw his fair hair, his blue eyes, the smile she remembered so well; she heard his low pleasant laugh, and at the same instant he looked at her and she at him, and they were apart again. then he led hester from the dancing-room, and down to the canopied recess where lady henmarsh sat, and where he remained for some time, laughing and chatting with his animated and attractive partner. he had seen katharine; and the result had been just what he had told yeldham he knew it would be. he was ready to acknowledge her as beautiful and fascinating as ever, but he did not mind seeing her a bit now. he would have been an ass to have married at all in his circumstances, and she did quite right to make a good match when she got the chance. she shouldn't have flirted with him and jilted him as she had done, to be sure; but then women were all alike, and it hadn't hurt him much after all. he was delighted to see her looking so well, and to believe that she was very happy; and, by jove, he was going to enjoy himself, and not think about love and marriage until he could afford such luxuries.

lady henmarsh had felt an acute pang of fear when she recognised gordon frere; but she soon quieted it by the timely reflection that no one could prove her share in the transactions of the past, and no one could unmarry katharine, or take the money he had made by the marriage out of cousin ned's pocket.

"i hope katharine won't make a fool of herself," she thought, as she watched her ascend the stairs with her husband, and thought of the inevitable meeting before her; "but if she is inclined to do it, nobody can prevent her, and it's no business of mine. what can have brought the idle young fool back, i wonder? i thought he was safe for five years at least, and then promotion to russia, or some equally desirable place." and when hester gould brought gordon frere down to the recess, lady henmarsh read in her face that she was pleased with the young man, and desirous that she should be gracious to him; so, as lady henmarsh found it convenient to further miss gould's pleasure just then to the utmost of her power, she was gracious to gordon frere, congratulated him on his return to london, and gave him to understand that sir timothy would be charmed to see him at cavendish square.

the ball terminated as brilliantly as it had begun; and katharine was the gayest of the gay, the brightest of the bright. she stayed very late, and she danced incessantly. again and again she found herself close to gordon frere, and once she was so placed that she had to choose between speaking to him and "cutting him dead." she took counsel of her pride; she remembered that if, as seemed likely, he was remaining in london, she must necessarily meet him often, and she decided on speaking to him. they were on the staircase, she going down, he coming up, with hester on his arm,--he had danced several times with her that night, as katharine had remarked,--when she bowed to him, and said,

"how do you do, mr. frere? have you been long in town?"

"a few days only, mrs. streightley. i hope mr. guyon is well?"

"quite well, thank you."

again she bowed, and passed him; and thus they met and parted, who, when last they met, had parted with the brightest and most blessed hope which ever gilds life for youth and love.

robert and katharine drove home in silence, which each hoped might be imputed by the other to fatigue. with her remembrance was busy, with him remorse and shame.