She disregarded them entirely.
The blood relation began to read. He seemed to forget to skip. Page
after page was slowly turned. Sometimes he hesitated a moment to change
a word. He had always been conscious of a gift for finding the right
word. This gift Hester did not share with him. She often got hold of the
wrong end of the stick. He could hardly refrain from a smile when he
came across the sentence, "He was young enough to know better," as he
substituted in a large illegible hand the word _old_ for _young_. There
were many obvious little mistakes of this kind that he corrected as he
read, but now and then he stopped short.
One of the characters, an odious person, was continually saying things
she had no business to say. Mr. Gresley wondered how Hester had come
across such doubtful women--not under his roof. Lady Susan must have
associated with thoroughly unsuitable people.
"I keep a smaller spiritual establishment than I did," said the odious
person. "I have dismissed that old friend of my childhood, the devil. I
really had no further use for him."
Mr. Gresley crossed through the passage at once. How could Hester write
so disrespectfully of the devil?
"This is positive nonsense," said Mr. Gresley, irritably; "coming as it
does just after the sensible chapter about the new vicar who made a
clean sweep of all the old dead regulations in his parish because he
felt he must introduce spiritual life into the place.
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