work of life was suited to the man:  he did not aspire to any different position, only to the full development of the capabilities of that which he already held.  He had originated several fresh schemes with regard to the traffic of the shop; and his old masters, with all their love of tried ways, and distrust of everything new, had been candid enough to confess that their successors’ plans had resulted in success.  ‘Their successors.’  Philip was content with having the power when the exercise of it was required, and never named his own important share in the new improvements.  Possibly, if he had, Coulson’s vanity might have taken the alarm, and he might not have been so acquiescent for the future.  As it was, he forgot his own subordinate share, and always used the imperial ‘we’, ‘we thought’, ‘it struck us,’ &c.

CHAPTER XXXII

RESCUED FROM THE WAVES

Meanwhile Hester came and went as usual; in so quiet and methodical a way, with so even and undisturbed a temper, that she was almost forgotten when everything went well in the shop or household.  She was a star, the brightness of which was only recognized in times of darkness.  She herself was almost surprised at her own increasing regard for Sylvia.  She had not thought she should ever be able to love the woman who had been such a laggard in acknowledging Philip’s merits; and from all she had ever heard of Sylvia before she came to know her, from the angry words with which Sylvia had received her when she had first gone to Haytersbank Farm, Hester had intended to remain on friendly terms, but to avoid intimacy.  But her kindness to Bell Robson had won both the mother’s and daughter’s hearts; and in spite of herself, certainly against her own mother’s advice, she had become the familiar friend and welcome guest of the household.

Now the very change in Sylvia’s whole manner and ways, which grieved and vexed Philip, made his wife the more attractive to Hester.  Brought up among Quakers, although not one herself, she admired and respected the staidness and outward peacefulness common amongst the young women of that sect.  Sylvia, whom she had expected to find volatile, talkative, vain, and wilful, was quiet and still, as if she had been born a Friend:  she seemed to have no will of her own; she served her mother and child for love; she obeyed her husband in all things, and never appeared to pine after gaiety or pleasure.  And yet at times Hester thought, or rather a flash came across her mind, as if all things were not as right as they seemed.  Philip looked older, more care-worn; nay, even Hester was obliged to allow to herself that she had heard him speak to his wife in sharp, aggrieved tones.  Innocent Hester! she could not understand how the very qualities she so admired in Sylvia were just what were so foreign to her nature that the husband, who had known her from a child, felt what an unnatural restraint she was putting upon herself, and would have hailed petulant words or wilful actions with an unspeakable thankfulness for relief.