Once she had spoken, Esther showed no disposition to retract, and she steadily resisted all Mrs. Bingley's solicitations to remain with her. She knew the risk she was running in leaving her situation, and yet she felt she must yield to an instinct like that which impels the hunted animal to leave the cover and seek safety in the open country. Her whole body cried out for rest, she must have rest; that was the thing that must be. Mrs. Lewis would keep her and her baby for twelve shillings a week; the present was the Christmas quarter, and she was richer by five and twenty shillings than she had been before. Mrs. Bingley had given her ten shillings, Mr. Hubert five, and the other ten had been contributed by the four young ladies. Out of this money she hoped to be able to buy a dress and a pair of boots, as well as a fortnight's rest with Mrs. Lewis. She had determined on her plans some three weeks before her month's warning would expire, and henceforth the mountainous days of her servitude drew out interminably, seeming more than ever exhausting, and the longing in her heart to be free at times rose to her head, and her brain turned as if in delirium. Every time she sat down to a meal she remembered she was so many hours nearer to rest--a fortnight's rest--she could not afford more; but in her present slavery that fortnight seemed at once as a paradise and an eternity. Her only fear was that her health might give way, and that she would be laid up during the time she intended for rest--personal rest. Her baby was lost sight of. Even a mother demands something in return for her love, and in the last year Jackie had taken much and given nothing. But when she opened Mrs. Lewis's door he came running to her, calling her Mummie; and the immediate preference he showed for her, climbing on her knees instead of on Mrs. Lewis's, was a fresh sowing of love in the mother's heart.