The result had fully justified Mr. Thacker's anticipations, and his relations with Hester were permanently established on a footing of as much mutual reliance as was possible to the nature of either, and the frank interchange of mutual good services. Mr. Thacker was unfeignedly pleased when he learned from the voice of rumour that the shipowner's heiress was becoming quite the fashion, and when he perceived by her brightened expression, her fresher colour, and the added vivacity of her manner and bearing, that Miss Gould entered with sincere enjoyment into the pleasures within her reach. A youth of well-concealed ambition, of self-repression, of toil, had not hardened and deadened and narrowed her, as it might have done a weaker nature; there was no active poison of cynicism in her knowledge of the world; and her coolheadedness, while it secured her from deception, did not err on the joyless side of utter disbelief. She enjoyed life as a connoisseur, not as an enthusiast--as an epicure, not as a gourmand; but she did enjoy it both well and wisely. Circumstances favoured Miss Gould very decidedly. She was sufficiently attractive to be admired by men, and not so aggressively beautiful as to be hated by women. She did not in the least overrate her own personal charms, or the powers of her mind; but she knew that she was good-looking and clever enough to be admired in society, independently of the wealth which had been her passport into it; while other women would console themselves for her success, and explain it on the grounds of that wealth solely. She had found herself admitted at once into the best of the society in which Katharine Guyon had moved before her marriage, and the circle was constantly expanding. Lady Henmarsh was more popular as the chaperone of a well-looking and richly-dowered heiress than as the chaperone of a well-connected beauty with no money, and a detrimental though pleasant papa. Miss Guyon's remarkably sensible and commendable marriage had also shed reflected glory upon Lady Henmarsh; and as the dangerous beauty was dangerous no longer, but, on the contrary, a decided acquisition, being excessively rich, and possessing a praiseworthy taste for expensive hospitalities, all the petty jealousies and envies excited by Miss Guyon were forgiven to "that dear creature Mrs. Streightley." Thus the world was to all seeming very fair and bright before the two young women whom a chance had brought together, to be thenceforth inextricably intermingled in each other's lives.