series, as
Robert Bolton's house was called,--was taken out by her father. This was
quite a new experiment, as she had never dined with any of her aunts and
cousins except at an early dinner almost as a child,--and even as a
child not at her brother Robert's. But the banker, after having declared
that she must go somewhere, had persisted. It is not to be supposed that
Caldigate was on this occasion invited to meet her;--nor that the father
had as yet agreed that any such meeting should be allowed. But as
William Bolton,--the London brother,--and Mrs. William and one of their
girls were down at Cambridge, it was arranged that Hester should meet
her relatives. Even so much as this was not settled without much
opposition on the part of Hester's mother.

There was nobody at the house but members of the family. The old
banker's oldest son Nicholas was not there as his wife and Mrs. Robert
did not get on well together. Mrs. Nicholas was almost as strict as Mrs.
Bolton herself, and, having no children of her own, would not have
sympathised at all in any desire to procure for Hester the wicked luxury
of a lover. The second son Daniel joined the party with his wife, but he
had married too late to have grown-up children. His wife was strict
too,--but of a medium strictness. Teas, concerts, and occasional dinner
parties were with her permissible;--as were also ribbons and a certain
amount of costly array. Mrs. Nicholas was in the habit of telling Mrs.
Daniel that you cannot touch pitch and not be defiled,--generally
intending to imply that Mrs. Robert was the pitch; and would harp on the
impossibility of serving both God and mammon, thinking perhaps that her
brother-in-law Robert and mammon were one and the same. But Daniel, who
could go to church as often as any man on Sundays, and had thoroughly
acquired for himself the reputation of a religious man of business, had
his own ideas as to proprieties and expediencies, and would neither
quarrel with his brother Robert, or allow his wife to quarrel with Mrs.
Robert. So that the Nicholases lived very much alone. Mrs. Nicholas and
Mrs. Bolton might have suited each other, might have been congenial and
a comfort each to the other, but the elder son and the elder son's wife
had endeavoured to prevent the old man's second marriage, and there had
never been a thorough reconciliation since. There are people who can
never forgive. Mrs. Nicholas had never forgiven the young girl for
marrying