deepest nature are such as not to admit of a mere private individual
satisfaction. I well remember feeling as a child that I did not care for
God to love me if he did not love everybody: the kind of love I needed
was love essential to my nature--the love of me, a man, not of me a
person--the love therefore that all men needed, the love that belonged
to their nature as the children of the Father, a love he could not give
me except he gave it to all men.

But this was not the beginning of Hester's enthusiasm for her kind--only
a crystallizing shock it received.

Nor was it likely to be the less powerful in the end that now at the age
of three and twenty she had but little to show for it. She was one of
the strong ones that grow slowly; and she had now for some years been
cherishing an idea, and working for its realization, which every sight
and sound of misery tended to quicken and strengthen.

"There you are again," said Cornelius--"star-gazing as usual! You'll be
spraining your other ankle presently!"

"I had forgotten all about my ankle, Corney dear," returned Hester,
softened by her sorrowful sympathy; "but I will be careful."

"You had better. Well, I think between us we had the worth of our
shilling! Did you ever see such a ridiculous old bloke!"

"I wish you would not use that word, Corney," said Hester, letting her
displeasure fall on the word, where she knew the feeling was entrenched
beyond assault.