Except for Hester--except for Hester!"

He smiled sadly to himself, threw a last troubled look at the little
house, and left it behind him. Before him, the village street, with its
green and its pond, widened under the scudding sky. Far ahead, about a
quarter of a mile away, among surrounding trees, certain outlines were
visible through the July twilight. The accustomed eye knew them for the
chimneys of the Fox-Wiltons' house, owned now, since the recent death
of its master, Sir Ralph Fox-Wilton, by his widow, the sister of the lady
with the cat and the embroidery, and mother of many children, for the
most part an unattractive brood, peevish and slow-minded like their
father. Hester was the bright, particular star in that house, as Stephen
Barron had now found out.

Alack!--alack! The Rector's face resumed for a moment the expression of
painful or brooding perplexity it had worn during his conversation of the
afternoon with young Barron, on the subject of Hester Fox-Wilton.

Another light in a window--and a sound of shouting and singing. The
"Cowroast," a "public" mostly frequented by the miners who inhabited the
northern end of the village, was evidently doing trade. The Rector did
not look up as he passed it; but in general he turned an indulgent eye
upon it. Before entering upon the living, he had himself worked for a
month as an ordinary miner, in the colliery whose tall chimneys could be
seen to the east above the village roofs. His body still vividly retained
the physical memory of those days--of the aching muscles, and the
gargantuan thirsts.

At last the rows of new-built cottages attached to the colliery came
in view on the left; to the right, a steep hillside heavily wooded,