“My sister has spoken to me of your kindness and his,” Mrs. Wayt answered thoughtfully. “She told me also that she had referred the question of accepting Mr. Gilchrist’s generous proposition to me. Hesitation seems ungracious, but my poor child is very excitable, and in nerve so unfit to work long at anything that I have doubted the expediency of allowing her to become interested in her favorite pursuit to the extent necessary for the acquisition of any degree of skill.” Nevertheless May went home victorious, and Mrs. Wayt, disquiet in eye and soul, sought her sister and detailed the steps of the siege and the surrender. “Refusal was impossible without risking the displeasure of influential parishioners, or exciting suspicions that might be more hurtful,” she concluded. Hetty was cleaning silver in the dining room. Over her buff gingham she wore a voluminous bib apron; housewifely solicitude informed her whole personality. Her hair was turned back from her temples, and the roughened roll showed rust-red lights in a bar of sunshine crossed by her head as she moved. The lines of her face had what Hester called “their forenoon _sag_,” a downward inclination that signified as much care as she could bear. She rubbed a tablespoon until she could see each loosened hair and drooping line in it, before unclosing her thinned lips to reply. Even then her speech was reluctant. “The child is yours, Frances—not mine, dearly as I love her. I understand as well as you how cruel it seems to deny her what is, in itself, a harmless pleasure. Still, we have agreed up to this time that it is inexpedient to give people the run of the house, and this looks like a straight road to that.” She did not glance up in speaking, or afterward. Her accent was unimpassioned, her thoughts apparently engrossed in the business of bringing polish out of tarnish. “There are circumstances that may alter cases—and premises,” returned Mrs. Wayt deprecatingly. “I cannot but feel that we may begin to argue and determine from a different standpoint. I wish you could be a little more sanguine, dear.” “You don’t wish it more than I do, sister! I wasn’t built upon the ‘Hope on, Hope ever’ plan. My utmost effort in that direction is to make the best of what cannot be bettered. And since you have said ‘Yes’ to this painting scheme we will think only of what a boon it will be to Hester. The new cook is a more imminent difficulty. This house is large, and the salary excellent, I admit, but it would have been wise to wait until our arrival before engaging her.” She knew that her sister was as much surprised as herself at Mr. Wayt’s commission to Mrs. Gilchrist, also that the wife would not plead this ignorance in self-defense.