were to be pitied? Mrs. Vail had everything that a woman could desire--a
beautiful home with trained service, a husband and son who considered no
one but her. It was strange. Hester could not understand why Helen
should always speak of Mrs. Vail as "poor Aunt Harriet."

CHAPTER XVII

How fine it would be if one could foresee the result of every action!
Hester Alden's slight prevarication to Robert Vail, when she told him
that her father had been Miss Debby's brother, carried with it a long
series of misunderstandings. Had Robert Vail known the facts--but he did
not.

Hester, bearing within her heart the consciousness of her own fault,
spent not a few unhappy moments with herself. To it, she attributed the
former entanglement, between herself and Helen. She reached this
conclusion because she knew of nothing else on account of which Helen
might have misjudged her. Several times, she decided to speak of the
matter to Helen and confess that she had misrepresented matters when she
had declared that she belonged to the Alden family; but each time, her
courage failed her, and her pride prevented. It is not an easy matter
for one to confess that she has, in her statements, deviated from the
truth.

The morning following the coming of the girls to Valehurst, Robert Vail
left home early and by a hard drive over the mountains at length reached
the junction where railroad communication had not been cut off.

Mrs. Perkins expected him to return with his mother the following day;
but they were detained by business. So Valehurst was left without a host
or hostess. Mrs. Perkins exerted herself to make the guests comfortable
and the servants, with which the home was well provided, vied with each
other in their attendance upon the young ladies. The girls were
thoroughly enjoying their experience, Hester, perhaps most of all, for
such a household was new to her. She liked to play lady of the manor.

"Don't you wish you and I could live this way?" she said to Debby Alden,
during the second day of the enforced visit. Debby Alden looked at the
questioner and then asked, "Are you not satisfied, Hester, with your own
little home?"

"Yes, I am!" cried the girl impulsively. "A little house with Aunt Debby
is better than a mansion without her. I am really satisfied. Yet it does
seem nice to be here. I feel quite at home."

"I presume a lady feels at home in any cultivated environment," was the
rejoinder. Debby paused a moment.