No longer was the girl starved, no longer was she made to drudge till the thought of another day was a despair and a terror. And seeing that she was a good girl, Mrs. Dunbar respected her scruples. Indeed, she was very kind, and Esther soon learnt to like her, and, through her affection for her, to think less of the life she led. A dangerous point is this in a young girl's life. Esther was young, and pretty, and weary, and out of health; and it was at this critical moment that Lady Elwin, who, while visiting, had heard her story, promised Mrs. Saunders to find Esther another place. And to obviate all difficulties about references and character, Lady Elwin proposed to take Esther as her own servant for a sufficient while to justify her in recommending her. And now, as she turned over her books--the books she could not read--her pure and passionate mind was filled with the story of her life. She remembered her poor little brothers and sisters and her dear mother, and that tyrant revenging himself upon them because of the little she might eat and drink. No, she must bear with all insults and scorn, and forget that they thought her as dirt under their feet. But what were such sufferings compared to those she would endure were she to return home? In truth they were as nothing. And yet the girl longed to leave Woodview. She had never been out of sight of home before. Amid the violences of her stepfather there had always been her mother and the meeting-house. In Woodview there was nothing, only Margaret, who had come to console and persuade her to come downstairs. The resolution she had to call out of her soul to do this exhausted her, and she went downstairs heedless of what anyone might say. Two and three days passed without anything occurring that might suggest that the Fates were for or against her remaining. Mrs. Barfield continued to be indisposed, but at the end of the week Esther, while she was at work in the scullery, heard a new voice speaking with Mrs. Latch. This must be Mrs. Barfield. She heard Mrs. Latch tell the story of her refusal to go to work the evening she arrived. But Mrs. Barfield told her that she would listen to no further complaints; this was the third kitchen-maid in four months, and Mrs. Latch must make up her mind to bear with the faults and failings of this last one, whatever they were. Then Mrs. Barfield called Esther; and when she entered the kitchen she found herself face to face with a little red-haired woman, with a pretty, pointed face. "I hear, Waters--that is your name, I think--that you refused to obey cook, and walked out of the kitchen the night you arrived." "I said, ma'am, that I would wait till my box came up from the station, so that I might change my dress. Mrs. Latch said my dress didn't matter, but when one is poor and hasn't many dresses----" "Are you short of clothes, then?" "I have not many, ma'am, and the dress I had on the day I came----"