The tone, expression, and power of Hester's voice astonished Vavasor afresh. He was convinced, and told her so, that even in the short time since he heard it last, it had improved in all directions. And when, after they had had enough of singing, she sat down and extemporized in a sacred strain, turning the piano almost into an organ with the sympathy of her touch, and weaving holy airs without end into the unrolling web of her own thought, Vavasor was so moved as to feel more kindly disposed toward religion--by which he meant "going to church, and all that sort of thing, don't you know? "--than ever in his life before. He did not call the next Sunday, but came on the Saturday; and the only one present who was not pleased with him was Miss Dasomma, who happened also to spend the evening there. I have already represented Hester's indebtedness to her teacher as such that therein she would be making discoveries all her life. Devout as well as enthusiastic, human as well as artistic, she was not an angel of music only, but had for many years been a power in the family for good--as indeed in every family in which she counted herself doing anything worth doing. Much too generous and helpful to have saved money, she was now, in middle age, working as hard as she had ever worked in her youth. Not a little experienced in the ways of the world, and possessing a high ideal in the memories of a precious friendship, against which to compare the ways of smaller mortals, she did not find her atmosphere gladdened by the presence of Mr. Vavasor's. With tact enough to take his cue from the family, he treated her with studious politeness; but Miss Dasomma did not like Mr. Vavasor. She had to think before she could tell why, for there is a spiritual instinct also, which often takes the lead of the understanding, and has to search and analyze itself for its own explanation. But the question once roused, she prosecuted it, and in the shadow of a curtain, while Hester was playing, watched his countenance, trying to read it--to read, that is, what the owner of that face never meant to write, but could no more help writing there than he could help having a face. What a man is lies as certainly upon his countenance as in his heart, though none of his acquaintance may be able to read it. Their very intercourse with him may have rendered it more difficult.