already morbid consciousness of her own loss of youth and beauty and
attractiveness, it fell into soil where such germs ripen as in a
hot-bed. In a less noble nature than Hetty's there would have grown
up side by side with this pain a hatred of Rachel, or, at least, an
antagonism towards her. In the fine equilibrium of Hetty's moral nature,
such a thing was impossible. She felt from that day a new interest in
Rachel. She looked at her, often scrutinizingly, and thought: "Ah, if
she were but well, what a sweet young wife she might make! I wish Eben
could have had such a wife! How much better it would have been for him
than having me!" She began now to go oftener with her husband to visit
Rachel. Closely, but with no sinister motive, no trace of ill-feeling,
she listened to all which they said. She observed the peculiar
gentleness with which the doctor spoke, and the docility with which
Rachel listened; and she said to herself: "That is quite unlike Eben's
manner to me, or mine to him. I wonder if that is not more nearly the
way it ought to be between husbands and wives. The wife ought to look
up to her husband as a little child does." Now, much as Hetty loved Dr.
Eben, passionately as her whole life centred around him, there had never
been such a feeling as this: they were the heartiest of comrades, but
each life was on a plane of absolute independence. Hetty pondered much
on this.




XI.

One day, as they sat by Rachel's bed, the doctor had been counting her
pulse. Her little white hand looked like a baby's hand in his. Holding
it up, he said to Hetty: