re went into Cambridge alone, and was taken up to
the house by her father. As she entered the iron gates she felt almost
as though she were going into the presence of one who was an enemy to
herself. And yet when she saw her mother, she rushed at once into the
poor woman's arms. 'Oh, mamma, dear mamma, dearest mamma! My own, own,
own mamma!'

Mrs. Bolton was sitting by the open window of a small breakfast parlour
which looked into the garden, and had before her on her little table her
knitting and a volume of sermons. 'So you have come back, Hester,' she
said after a short pause. She had risen at first to receive her
daughter, and had returned her child's caresses, but had then reseated
herself quickly, as though anxious not to evince any strong feeling on
the occasion.

'Yes, mamma, I have come back. We have been so happy!'

'I am glad you have been happy. Such joys are short-lived; but, still--'

'He has been so good to me, mamma!'

Good! What was the meaning of the word good? She doubted the goodness of
such goodness as his. Do not they who are tempted by the pleasures of
the world always praise the good-nature and kindness of them by whom
they are tempted? There are meanings to the word good which are so
opposed one to another! 'A husband is, I suppose, generally kind to his
wife, at any rate for a little time,' she said.

'Oh, mamma, I do so wish you knew him!' The woman turned her face round,
away from her daughter, and assumed that look of hard, determined
impregnable obstinacy with which Hester had been well acquainted all
her life. But the young wife had come there with a purpose, not strong
perhaps, in actual hope, but resolute even against hope to do her best.
There must be an enduring misery to her unless she could bring her
mother into some friendly relation with her husband, and she had
calculated that the softness produced by her return would give a better
chance for this than she might find at any more protracted time. But
Mrs. Bolton had also made her calculations and had come to her
determination. She turned her head away therefore, and sat quite silent,
with the old stubborn look of resolved purpose.

'Mamma, you will let him come to you now?'

'No.'

'Not your own Hester's husband?'

'No.'

'Are we to be divided for ever?'

'Did I not tell you before,--when you were going? Shall I lie, and say
that I love him? I will not touch pitch, lest I be defiled.'

'Mamma, he is my husband. You