She heard nothing, but Amy started and turned to the door. She was
following her, when Amy said, in a voice almost of terror,
"Please, miss, do not let him see you till I have told him you are
here."
"Certainly not," answered Hester, and drew back,--"if you think the
sight of me would hurt him!"
"Thank you, miss; I am sure it would," whispered Amy. "He is frightened
of you."
"Frightened of me!" said Hester to herself, repeating Amy's phrase, when
she had gone in, leaving her at the head of the stair. "I should have
thought he only disliked me! I wonder if he would have loved me a
little, if he had not been afraid of me! Perhaps I could have made him
if I had tried. It is easier then to wake fear than love!"
It may be very well for a nature like Corney's to fear a father: fear
does come in for some good where love is wanting: but I doubt if fear of
a sister can be of any good.
"If he couldn't love me," thought Hester, "it would have been better he
hadn't been afraid of me. Now comes the time when it renders me unable
to help him!"
When first it began to dawn upon Hester that there was in her a certain
hardness of character distinct in its nature from that unbending
devotion to the right which is imperative--belonging in truth to the
region of her weakness--that self which fears for itself, and is of
death, not of life.
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