Among Hester's intimates for several of her school years was Ellen Streightley, a girl who loved and worshipped one who was in most respects her opposite with a kind of enthusiasm not rare among unworldly natures, in which the intellect is much less powerful than the feelings. The boarding-school at Peckham was not altogether such an establishment as Miss Streightley should have been kept at beyond the period of primary instruction; but her mother was a shy, gentle, unworldly woman, who did not understand any thing about social ambition, and provided she found her daughter brought up in sound morals and good manners would not have considered for a moment whether her associates were of a higher class than her own, or came of richer or poorer people. Mrs. Streightley had never changed her mode of life in accordance with her increased means; she had but a narrow circle, which was, however, quite satisfactory to her, and she regarded the commercial and financial magnates with whom her son associated on the rare occasions of his "going into society," as completely out of the sphere of herself and her daughter. This daughter was very dear to her; a tranquil, gentle, congenial companion, a child who had never given her an hour's true anxiety in her life, and had even had the measles and the whooping-cough much more lightly and favourably than other children. Ellen Streightley was short, slight, and extremely fair. She was not exactly pretty, but the calm sweetness of her face was very winning, and the perfect candour and gentleness which sat upon her smooth forehead and looked out of her full blue eyes had an unwearying charm for those who knew how true these indications were of the mind and heart within. Ellen Streightley loved her mother and her brother Robert with all the devotion and dutifulness of her nature; but Hester Gould she loved with enthusiasm in addition. From the first Hester's strong mind had charmed and swayed her, and the imagination of the girl, not very vivid and but rarely awakened, had surrounded her with a halo of its weaving. Had Hester's moral nature been much or openly defective, she never would have won this tribute of love and worship from Ellen Streightley, who had good sense to come in aid of her high principle, and her perfect purity of heart, but who succumbed to the superiority of Hester with a delighted submission. When they were children together, Hester's word had been the other's law, and had any thing been needed to perfect her love and admiration, Hester's conduct in voluntarily assuming the position of pupil-teacher in order that her aunt might suffer as little as possible from their narrow circumstances would have supplied their complement. There was no falsehood in this statement, made by Hester to her friend. It was quite true, only it was not the whole of her motive, but a part, and not the chief part of it.