"That is not malicious, dear," said Mrs. John. "Emma is very amusing, being so frank, but she is right enough when you come to think of it; for what can she do if she does not marry? And I am sure Edward Vernon, though Catherine makes such a fuss about him, is nothing so very great. I wonder what he meant coming here that one night, and so late."
"It was by accident," Hester said.
"It was a very odd accident," cried her mother, "no one else ever did so."
"He had been sitting late over his work, and his head was very full of—business."
Mrs. John looked in all the confidence of superior wisdom into her daughter's face. A smile dawned upon her lips.
"Perhaps you think he was coming to confide his troubles about his business, Hester, to you and me."
"And why not?" said Hester, raising herself from her bed.
Mrs. John dropped her fan in her surprise, and sat down abruptly upon the little chair by Hester's bedside, to her daughter's great relief.
"Why not?" she said. "I think, though you are my own, that you are the strangest girl I ever knew. Do you think a man ever talks to women about these things? Oh, perhaps to a woman like Catherine that is the same as a man. But to anybody he cares for—never, oh, never, dear! I suppose he has a respect for you and me; think of any man venturing to bring business into my drawing-room, though it is only a poor little parlour now, not a drawing-room at all. Oh, no, that could never—never be! In all my life I never descended so low as that," Mrs. John said, with dignity. "I used to be brought into contact with a great many business people when your poor dear papa was living; but they never talked 'shop,' as they call it, before me."