He left behind him one child--a lovely but delicate girl, of whom no one
seemed to think in the change that had arrived.
It would be untrue to say that Hester was not interested in the news.
They had been so much thrown together of late, and in circumstances so
favourable to intimacy, to the manifestation of what of lovable was in
him, and to the revelation of how much her image possessed him, that she
could hardly have been a woman at all and not care for what might befall
him. Neither, although her life lay, and she felt that it lay, in far
other regions, was she so much more than her mother absorbed in the
best, as to be indifferent to the pleasure of wearing a distinguished
historical name, or of occupying an exalted position in the eyes of the
world. Her nature was not yet so thoroughly possessed with the things
that _are_ as distinguished from the things that only appear, as
not to feel some pleasure in being a countess of this world, while
waiting the inheritance of the saints in light. Of course this was just
as far unworthy of her as it is unworthy of any one who has seen the hid
treasure not to have sold all that he has to buy it--not to have
counted, with Paul, everything but dross to the winning of Christ--not
even worth being picked up on the way as he presses towards the mark of
the high calling; but I must say this for her, that she thought of it
first of all as a buttressing help to the labours, which, come what
might, it remained her chief hope to follow again among her poor friends
in London.
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