"I am very glad for you and papa, mother dear," answered Hester. "I was
thinking of my poor people, and what they would do without me."
"Wait my child," returned her mother, "I have sometimes found the very
things I dreaded most serve me best. I don't mean because I got used to
them, or because they did me good. I mean they furthered what I thought
they would ruin."
"Thank you, dear mother, you can always comfort me," rejoined Hester.
"For myself I could not imagine anything more pleasant. If only it were
near London!--or," she added, smiling through her tears, "if one hadn't
a troublesome heart and conscience playing into each other's hands!"
She was still thinking of her poor, but her mother was in doubt.
* * * * *
"I suppose, father," said Cornelius, "there will be no occasion for me
to go to the bank any more?"
"There will be more occasion than ever," answered his father: "will
there not be the more to look after when I am gone? What do you imagine
you could employ yourself with down there? You have never taken to
study, else, as you know, I would have sent you to Oxford.
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