of a well-born and wealthy family. Yet the position of
servitude was irksome to her, and she was glad at last to live at home with her
father; for though, throughout her girlhood, she had wished to avoid this lot, a
little experience had taught her to prefer its comparative independence. But she
was not contented with her life: she seemed to herself to be surrounded with
ignoble, uninteresting conditions, from which there was no issue; for even if
she had been unamiable enough to give her father pain deliberately, it would
have been no satisfaction to her to go to Treby church, and visibly turn her
back on Dissent. It was not religious differences, but social differences, that
Esther was concerned about, and her ambitious taste would have been no more
gratified in the society of the Waces than in that of the Muscats. The Waces
spoke imperfect English and played whist; the Muscats spoke the same dialect and
took in the Evangelical Magazine. Esther liked neither of these amusements. She
had one of those exceptional organisations which are quick and sensitive without
being in the least morbid; she was alive to the finest shades of manner, to the
nicest distinctions of tone and accent; she had a little code of her own about
scents and colours, textures and behaviour, by which she secretly condemned or
sanctioned all things and persons. And she was well satisfied with herself for
her fastidious taste, never doubting that hers was the highest standard. She was
proud that the best-born and handsomest girls at school had always said that she
might be taken for a born lady. Her own pretty instep, clad in a silk stocking,
her little heel, just rising from a kid slipper, her irreproachable nails and
delicate wrist, were the objects of delighted consciousness to her; and she felt
that it was her superiority which made her unable to use without disgust any but
the finest cambric handkerchiefs and freshest gloves. Her money all went in the
gratification of these nice tastes, and she saved nothing from her earnings. I
cannot say that she had any pangs of conscience on this score; for she felt sure
that she was generous: she hated all meanness, would empty her purse impulsively
on some sudden appeal to her pity, and if she found out that her father had a
want, she would supply it with some pretty device of a surprise. But then the
good man so seldom had a want - except the perpetual desire, which she could
never gratify, of seeing her under convictions, and fit to become a member of
the church.
    As for little Mr Lyon