han any one; revealing, discussing, as if I were the
teacher and not the learner,--you will say the worshipper. Say it if
you will. Our whole little world worships the one or the other.
Hester is also well worthy of worship. If there were nothing but her
beauty, she would have a wider world than ours of Deerbrook at her
feet. But she has much more. She is what you would call a true
woman. She has a generous soul, strong affections, and a
susceptibility which interferes with her serenity. She is not exempt
from the trouble and snare into which the lot of women seems to drive
them,--too close a contemplation of self, too nice a sensitiveness,
which yet does not interfere with devotedness to others. She will be
a devoted wife: but Margaret does not wait to be a wife to be devoted.
Her life has been devotedness, and will be to the end. If she were
left the last of her race, she would spend her life in worshipping the
unseen that lay about her, and would be as unaware of herself as now.

"What a comfort it is to speak freely of them! This is the first
relief of the kind I have had. Every one is praising them; every one
is following them: but to whom but you can I speak of them? Even to
you, I filled my first sheet with mere surface matter. I now wonder
how I could. As for the `general opinion' of Deerbrook on the
engrossing subject of the summer, you will anticipate it in your own
mind,--concluding that Hester is most worshipped, on account of her
beauty, and that Margaret's influence must be too subtle and refined
to operate on more than a few. This is partly, but not wholly the
case. It has been taken for granted from the beginning, by the many,
that Hester is to be exclusively the adored; and Enderby has, I fancy,
as many broad hints as myself of this general conclusion. But I
question whether Enderby assents, any more than myself. Margaret's
influence may be received as unconsciously as it is exerted, but it is
not, therefore, the less real, while it is the more potent. I see old
Jem Bird raise himself up from the churchyard bench by his staff, and
stand uncovered as Hester passes by; I see the children in the road
touch one another, and look up at her; I see the admiration which
diffuses itself like sunshine around her steps: all this homage to
Hester is visible enough. But I also see Sydney Grey growing manly,
and his sisters amiab