If she talked to him in her interesting semi-Oriental way, and was fervid and picturesque in her storytelling, he might be attracted by her.

She had her charm, and when she lifted the heavy lids of her long black eyes and fixed her gaze upon her hearer as she talked about the inner side of native life, of which she knew such curious, intimate things, people always listened, even in India, where the thing was not so much of a novelty, and in England she might be a sort of sensation.
Osborn managed to convey to her gradually, by a process of his own, a great deal of what he wanted her to do.

During the months before the matter of the leave was quite decided, he dropped a word here and there which carried a good deal of suggestion to a mind used to seizing on passing intimations.

The woman who had been Hester's Ayah when she was a child had become her maid.

She was a woman with a wide, silent acquaintance with her own people.