"You won't lose yours for love at least," concluded Miss Vavasor, who could not help admiring her ability, though she despised the direction it took. "I see," she said to herself, "she is one of the strong-minded who think themselves superior to any man. Gartley will be well rid of her--that is my conviction! I think I have done nearly all he could require of me." "I tell you honestly," continued Hester, "I love lord Gartley so well that I would gladly yield my life to do him any worthy good."--"It is easy to talk," said Miss Vavasor to herself.--"Not that that is saying much," Hester went on, "for I would do that to redeem any human creature from the misery of living without God. I would even marry lord Gartley--I think I would, after what has passed--if only I knew that he would not try to prevent me from being the woman I ought to be and have to be;--perhaps I would--I am not clear about it just at this moment: never, if I were married to him, would I be so governed by him that he should do that! But who would knowingly marry for strife and debate? Who would deliberately add to the difficulties of being what she ought to be, what she desired, and was determined, with God's help, to be! I for one will not take an enemy into the house of my life. I will not make it a hypocrisy to say, 'Lead us not into temptation.' I grant you a wife must love her husband grandly'--passionately, if you like the word; but there is one to be loved immeasurably more grandly, yea _passionately_, if the word means anything true and good in love--he whose love creates love. Can you for a moment imagine, when the question came between my Lord and my husband, I would hesitate?" "'Tis a pity you were not born in the middle ages," said Miss Vavasor, smiling, but with a touch of gentle scorn in the superiority of her tone; "you would certainly have been canonized!" "But now I am sadly out of date--am I not?" returned Hester, trying to smile also. "I could no more consent to live in God's world without minding what he told me, than I would marry a man merely because he admired me." "Heavens," exclaimed Miss Vavasor to what she called herself, "what an extravagant young woman! She won't do for us! You'll have to let her fly, my dear boy!" What she said to Hester was,