It is only the very basest and the very noblest natures that can accept great favours and not be crushed by them. Esther's is neither. To her it is only the thought that her state of dependence is temporary that makes it supportable. She has lost no time in appealing to Mrs. Brandon for her aid in the search for work--_work_, that vague word, that conveys to her no distinct idea, that stands to her in the place of something to be done by her, in return for which she may be able to obtain food and drink, without saying "Thank you" to any one for them. On the afternoon of the day of Bob's departure Esther has been sitting for an hour or more, in listless sadness, on the fender-stool before the fire, her eyes staring vacantly at the battered Michaelmas daisies and discoloured chrysanthemums in the wintry, darkening garden outside. Mrs. Brandon's steel knitting-pins click gently, as she knits round and round, round and round, in the monotonous eternity of a long-ribbed knickerbocker stocking. The fire-gleams flicker dully red on the sombre, large-patterned flock-paper, which makes the room look twice as small and twice as dark as it need otherwise do. Esther is roused from her reverie by the entrance of the servant with the moderator lamp. "Mrs. Brandon!" she says, addressing her hostess. "Yes, my dear!" The "my dear" is a concession to Bob's memory. "Bob told me," says the young girl, with some diffidence, "that you were good enough to say that you would help me in looking for--for--something to do!" The old lady looks scrutinizingly at her over the tops of her spectacles. "My dear son expressed such great, such _surprising_ anxiety, considering that your connection with him is at an end, about your future, that I _did_ promise." "And you will?" asks the other, timidly. "_I_ always keep _my_ promises, Esther, I hope" (with a slight expressive accent on the _I_ and _my_). "When will you begin?--soon?--at once? to-morrow?" cries the girl, eagerly. Mrs. Brandon hesitates: "I must first know for what sort of employment you wish--for what sort you are best suited?" "I am suited for nothing," she answers, despondently; "but that must not deter me. If nobody did any work but what they were fitted for, three quarters of the world would be idle." "Would you be inclined to take a situation as governess, if one could be found for you in a respectable pious family?" She shakes her head. "I don't know enough, and I have no accomplishments. I can read a few pages of 'Racine' or 'Télémaque' without applying _very_ often to the dictionary; modern French, with its colloquialisms and slang, baffles me; and I can play a few 'Etudes' and 'Morceaux de Salon' in a slipshod, boarding-school fashion; but these extensive requirements would hardly be enough."