She was no less considerate of those to whom her former obligations were of another kind, and must be redeemed in a different way. Among their number were the Hampstead Hebrews, Rachel and Rebecca Thacker, and Ellen Streightley. To the dark-browed sisters of her confidential friend Miss Gould extended every social advantage within her power to compass for them. They found their lives wonderfully brightened, and their ideas much expanded under Hester's influence; and they became more enthusiastically fond of her than ever. Ellen Streightley had become less enthusiastic about Katharine since she had been in town. The constant stir, the fashionable jargon, the incessant familiar mention of places, and persons, and circumstances, all foreign to her knowledge, her tastes, and her ideas, troubled and confused her. The same sort of thing had existed at Middlemeads indeed, but on a lesser scale; and then Ellen had had Hester to support her, and she had not felt so insignificant, so lost, as she felt now, in the ever-shifting, ever-thronging crowd in Portland Place. Katharine was as kind to her as ever, but she had no time to occupy herself with her; and the romantic vision of sisterly confidence, which had made her sojourn at Middlemeads delightful to Ellen, vanished away before the realism of the tumultuous frivolity of London life. Ellen had been enchanted with Middlemeads, but the house in Portland Place alarmed more than it pleased her. She remembered penitently the warnings of Decimus, who was soon coming back now--a circumstance which rendered them all the more terrible; she was chilled by the cool undemonstrative disapproval of her mother, who had but once entered her son's splendid house; she felt out of her place there; she was no longer at home with Katharine as she had been at Middlemeads; here she was only one of her sister-in-law's innumerable guests. But when Ellen was with Hester Gould she had no such feeling. Hester was quite unaltered, enjoyed as much leisure, and was as well disposed to share it with her friend as in the old days. Hester's house was very handsome, and her establishment was very imposing, and in all things different from the Brixton villa; but Ellen was not dazzled and bewildered and put at a disadvantage by this difference, as she was by that of Katharine's house and manner of living; she did not feel like a stranger at Palace Gardens. Hester would receive her as calmly and pleasantly as though no afternoon engagements were in contemplation; would listen to all her simple, eager, unimpressive confidences with unwavering patience; would listen even to the outpourings of the honest missionary, who had a habit of digressing into sermons in his love-letters; in short, Hester took a sound and serious interest in Ellen's fate. Miss Gould excessively disliked the deportation of her friend to foreign, and probably cannibal, parts, and had given much consideration to the question whether it might not