And, oh! Rachel, the worst is that presently, when I have forgotten what it ought to have been, when the vision fades, I know I shall _admire_ what I have written.

It is that that breaks my heart." The old, old lament of those who worship art, that sternest mistress in the world, fell into the silence of the little drawing-room.

Rachel understood it in part only, for she had always vaguely felt that Hester idealized Nature, as she idealized her fellow-creatures, as she idealized everything, and she did not comprehend why Hester was in despair because she could not speak adequately of Life or Nature as she saw them.

Rachel thought, with bewilderment, that that was just what she could do.
At this moment a carriage drew up at the door, and after a long interval, during which the wrathful voice of the cook could be distinctly heard through the kitchen window recalling "Hemma" to a sense of duty from the back yard, "Hemma" breathlessly ushered in the Bishop of Southminster..