Never once in her life had she done or abstained from doing a thing _because_ that thing was right or was wrong.

Such a person, be she as old and as hard as the hills, is mere putty in the fingers of Beelzebub.
Hesper rose and went to her own room.

There, for a long hour, she sat--with the skin of her fair face drawn tight over muscles rigid as marble--sat without moving, almost without thinking--in a mere hell of disgusted anticipation.

She neither stormed nor wept; her life went smoldering on; she nerved herself to a brave endurance, instead of a far braver resistance.
I fancy Hesper would have been a little shocked if one had called her an atheist.

She went to church most Sundays--when in the country; for, in the opinion of Lady Margaret, it was not decorous _there_ to omit the ceremony: where you have influence you ought to set a good example--of hypocrisy, namely! But, if any one had suggested to Hesper a certain old-fashioned use of her chamber-door, she would have inwardly laughed at the absurdity.