She knew that it would take much money to stock the farm again, and that her hands were tied from much useful activity by the love and care she owed to her baby.

But still, somehow, she hoped and she fancied, till Jeremiah Foster's measured words and carefully-arranged plan made her silently relinquish her green, breezy vision.
Hester, too, had her own private rebellion--hushed into submission by her gentle piety.

If Sylvia had been able to make Philip happy, Hester could have felt lovingly and almost gratefully towards her; but Sylvia had failed in this.
Philip had been made unhappy, and was driven forth a wanderer into the wide world--never to come back! And his last words to Hester, the postscript of his letter, containing the very pith of it, was to ask her to take charge and care of the wife whose want of love towards him had uprooted him from the place where he was valued and honoured.
It cost Hester many a struggle and many a self-reproach before she could make herself feel what she saw all along--that in everything Philip treated her like a sister.

But even a sister might well be indignant if she saw her brother's love disregarded and slighted, and his life embittered by the thoughtless conduct of a wife! Still Hester fought against herself, and for Philip's sake she sought to see the good in Sylvia, and she strove to love her as well as to take care of her.
With the baby, of course, the case was different.

Without thought or struggle, or reason, every one loved the little girl.