“There was a mouse in Portman Square”;

and so, with many breaks, the friendship attained a surer footing, and the intimacy grew with their growth, in spite of the fact that Lady Susan had felt unable (notwithstanding the marked advances of Mrs. West, possibly because of them) to enlarge her visiting-list, in spite of many other difficulties which were only in the end surmounted by the simplicity of character which Rachel had not inherited from her parents.

And then, after both girls had danced through one London season in different ball-rooms, Rachel’s parents died, her mother first, and then—­by accident—­her father, leaving behind him an avalanche of unsuspected money difficulties, in which even his vast fortune was engulfed.

Hard years followed for Rachel.  She ate the bread of carefulness in the houses of poor relations not of high degree, with whom her parents had quarrelled when they had made their money and began to entertain social ambitions.  She learned what it was to be the person of least importance in families of no importance.  She essayed to teach, and failed.  She had no real education.  She made desperate struggles for independence, and learned how others failed besides herself.  She left her relations and their bitter bread and came to London, and struggled with those who struggled, and saw how Temptation spreads her net for bleeding feet.  Because she loved Hester she accepted from her half her slender pin-money.  Hester had said, “If I were poor, Rachel, how would you bear it if I would not let you help me?” And Rachel had wept slow, difficult tears, and had given Hester the comfort of helping her.  The greater generosity was with Rachel, and Hester knew it.

And as Rachel’s fortunes sank, Hester’s rose.  Lady Susan Gresley had one talent, and she did not lay it up in a napkin.  She had the art of attracting people to her house, that house to which Mrs. West had never forced an entrance.  Hester was thrown from the first into a society which her clergyman brother, who had never seen it, pronounced to be frivolous, worldly, profane, but which no one has called dull.  There were many facets in Hester’s character, and Lady Susan had managed to place her where they caught the light.  Was she witty?  Was she attractive?  Who shall say?  Man is wisely averse to “cleverness” in a woman, but if he possesses any armor wherewith to steel himself against wit it is certain that he seldom puts it on.  She refused several offers, one so brilliant that no woman ever believed that it was really made.

Lady Susan saw that her niece, without a fortune, with little beauty save that of high breeding, with weak health, was becoming a personage.  “What will she become?” people said.  And in the meanwhile Hester did nothing beyond dressing extremely well.  And everything she saw and every person she met added fuel to an unlit fire in her soul.