ncreased their tenderness.
'Hester, through it all, do you not know that my heart yearns for you
day and night?--that in my prayers I am always remembering you? that my
dreams are happy because you are with me? that I am ever longing for
you as Ruth longed for Naomi? I am as Rachel weeping for her children,
who would not be comforted because they are not. Day and night my
heart-strings are torn asunder because my eyes behold you not.'

It was true,--and the daughter knew it to be true. But what could be
done? There had grown up something for her, holier, greater, more
absorbing even than a mother's love. Happily for most young wives,
though the new tie may surmount the old one, it does not crush it or
smother it. The mother retains a diminished hold, and knowing what
nature has intended is content. She, too, with some subsidiary worship,
kneels at the new altar, and all is well. But here, though there was
abundant love, there was no sympathy. The cause of discord was ever
present to them both. Unless John Caldigate was acknowledged to be a
fitting husband, not even the mother could be received with a full
welcome. And unless John Caldigate were repudiated, not even the
daughter could be accepted as altogether pure. Parental and filial
feelings sufficed for nothing between them beyond the ecstasy of a
caress.

As Hester was standing mute, still holding her mother's hand, the
servant came to the door, and asked whether she would have her lunch.

'You will stay and eat with me, mamma? But you will come up to my room
first?'

'I will go up to your room, Hester.'

'Then we will have our lunch,' Hester said, turning to the servant. So
the two went together to the upper chamber, and in a moment the mother
had fetched her baby, and placed it in her mother's arms.

'I wish he were at the Grange,' said Mrs. Bolton. Then Hester shook her
head; but feeling the security of her position, left the baby with its
grandmother. 'I wish he were at the Grange. It is the only fitting home
for him at present.'

'No, mamma; that cannot be.'

'It should be so, Hester. It should be so.'

'Pray do not speak of it, dear mamma.'

'Have I not come here on purpose that I might speak of it? Sweet as it
is to me to have you in my arms, do you not know that I have come for
that purpose,--for that only?'

'It cannot be so.'

'I will not take such an answer, Hester. I am not here to speak of
pleasure or delights,--not to speak of sweet com