suddenly from ruin to prosperity, could
not, he thought, be regarded as a steady well-to-do man of business. He
did agree that, as regarded Hester, the prison-bars should be removed;
but he did not think that she should be invited to walk forth with Mr.
John Caldigate. Robert declared that his sister was quite able to form
an opinion of her own, and boldly suggested that Hester should be
allowed to come and dine at his house. 'To meet the man?' asked the
banker in dismay. 'Yes,' said Robert. 'He isn't an ogre. You needn't be
afraid of him. I shall be there,--and Margaret. Bring her yourself if
you are afraid of anything. No plant ever becomes strong by being kept
always away from the winds of heaven.' To this he could not assent at
the time. He knew that it was impossible to assent without consulting
his wife. But he was brought so far round as to think that if nothing
but his own consent were wanting, his girl would be allowed to go and
meet the ogre.

'I suppose we ought to wish that Hester should be married some day,' he
said to his wife about this time. She shuddered and dashed her hands
together as though deprecating some evil,--some event which she could
hardly hope to avoid but which was certainly an evil. 'Do you not wish
that yourself?' She shook her head. 'Is it not the safest condition in
which a woman can live?'

'How shall any one be safe among the dangers of this world, Nicholas?'
She habitually called her husband by his Christian name, but she was the
only living being who did so.

'More safe then?' said he. 'It is the natural condition of a woman.'

'I do not know. Sin is natural.'

'Very likely. No doubt. But marriage is not sinful.'

'Men are so wicked.'

'Some of them are.'

'Where is there one that is not steeped in sin over his head?'

'That applies to women also; doesn't it?' said the banker petulantly. He
was almost angry because she was introducing a commonplace as to the
world's condition into a particular argument as to their daughter's
future life,--which he felt to be unfair and illogical.

'Of course it does, Nicholas. We are all black and grimed with sin, men
and women too; and perhaps something more may be forgiven to men because
they have to go out into the world and do their work. But neither one
nor the other can be anything but foul with sin;--except,--except--'

He was quite accustomed to the religious truth which was coming, and, in
an ordinary way, did not object to th