“’I am not unmindful of our conversation on the duty of those who go annually to London to bring a spiritual influence to bear on society’—­("I impressed that upon her before she went up.")—­’We had a most interesting dinner-party last week, nearly all celebrated and gifted persons, and the conversation was really beyond anything I can describe to you.  I thought my poor brain would turn.  I was quite afraid to join in.  But Mr. Harvey—­the great Mr. Harvey—­told me afterwards I was at my best.  One lady, Miss Barker, who has done so much for the East End, is coming down to Wilderleigh shortly for a rest.  I am anxious you should talk to her.  She says she has doubts, and she is tired of the Bible.  By the way, please tell Hester, with my love, that she and Mr. Harvey attacked The Idyll of East London, and showed it up entirely, and poor little me had to stand up for her against them all.”

“She would never do that,” said Hester, tranquilly.  “She might perhaps have said, ‘The writer is a friend of mine.  I must stand up for her.’  But she would never have gone beyond saying it to doing it.”

“Hester,” exclaimed Mrs. Gresley, feeling that she might just as well have remained a spinster if she was to be thus ignored in her own house, “I can’t think how you can allow your jealousy of Sybell Loftus, for I can attribute it to nothing else, to carry you so far.”

“Perhaps it had better carry me into the garden,” said Hester, rising with the others.  “You must forgive me if I spoke irritably.  I have a racking headache.”

“She looks ill,” said her brother, following Hester’s figure with affectionate solicitude, as she passed the window a moment later.

“And yet she does next to nothing,” said the hard-worked little wife, intercepting the glance.  “I always thought she wrote her stories in the morning.  I know she is never about if the Pratt girls call to see her before luncheon.  Yet when I ran up to her room yesterday morning to ask her to take Mary’s music, as Fraeulein had the headache”—­(Mrs. Gresley always spoke of “the headache” and “the toothache")—­“she was lying on her bed doing nothing at all.”

“She is very unaccountable,” said Mr. Gresley.  “Still, I can make allowance for the artistic temperament.  I share it to a certain degree.  Poor Hester.  She is a spoiled child.”

“Indeed, James, she is.  And she has an enormous opinion of herself.  For my part, I think the Bishop is to blame for making so much of her.  Have you never noticed how different she is when he is here, so gay and talkative, and when we are alone she hardly says a word for days together, except to the children?”

“She talked more when she first came,” said Mr. Gresley.  “But when she found I made it a rule to discourage argument”—­(by argument Mr. Gresley meant difference of opinion)—­“she seemed gradually to lose interest in conversation.  Yet I have heard the Bishop speak of her as a brilliant talker.  And Lord Newhaven asked me last spring how I liked having a celebrity for a sister.  A celebrity!  Why, half the people in Middleshire don’t even know of Hester’s existence.”  And the author of “Modern Dissent” frowned.