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 shall not call him pitch. He is my very own. Mamma, mamma!--recall the word that you have said.' The woman felt that it had to be recalled in some degree. 'I said nothing of him, Hester. I call that pitch which I believe to be wrong, and if I swerve but a hair's-breadth wittingly towards what I believe to be evil, then I shall be touching pitch and then I shall be defiled. I did not say that he was pitch. Judge not and ye shall not be judged.' But if ever judgment was pronounced, and a verdict given, and penalties awarded, such was done now in regard to John Caldigate. 'But, mamma, why will it be doing evil to be gracious to your daughter's husband?'