She had fallen into a deep sleep in the low window-seat, with her pale forehead against the pane; a sleep so deep that even the alarum of the baby did not rouse her, nor the entrance of Emma with the hot water.
* * * * * "James," said Mrs.Gresley, an hour later; as she and her husband returned through the white mist from early celebration, "Hester was not there.

I thought she had promised to come." "She had." There was a moment's silence.
"Perhaps she is not well," said Mr.Gresley, closing the church-yard gate into the garden.
Mrs.Gresley's heart swelled with a sense of injustice.

She had often been unwell, often in feeble health before the birth of her children, but had she ever pleaded ill-health as an excuse for absenting herself from one of the many services which her husband held to be the main-spring of the religious life?
"I do not think she can be very unwell.

She is standing by the magnolia now," she said, her lip quivering, and withdrawing her hand from her husband's arm.

She almost hated the slight, graceful figure, which was not of her world, which was, as she thought, coming between her and her husband.
"I will speak seriously to her," said Mr.Gresley, dejectedly, who recollected that he had "spoken seriously" to Hester many times at his wife's instigation without visible result.