times.

I wondered who the woman could be. Some neighbor, of course.
But what a strange way for her to come! She walked up the garden
slowly in the poplar shade. Now and then she stooped, as if to
caress a flower, but she plucked none. Half way up she out in to
the moonlight and walked across the plot of grass in the center
of the garden. My heart gave a great throb and I stood up. She
was quite near to me now--and I saw that it was Hester.

I can hardly say just what my feelings were at this moment. I
know that I was not surprised. I was frightened and yet I was
not frightened. Something in me shrank back in a sickening
terror; but _I_, the real I, was not frightened. I knew that
this was my sister, and that there could be no reason why I
should be frightened of her, because she loved me still, as she
had always done. Further than this I was not conscious of any
coherent thought, either of wonder or attempt at reasoning.

Hester paused when she came to within a few steps of me. In the
moonlight I saw her face quite plainly. It wore an expression I
had never before seen on it--a humble, wistful, tender look.
Often in life Hester had looked lovingly, even tenderly, upon me;
but always, as it were, through a mask of pride and sternness.
This was gone now, and I felt nearer to her than ever before. I
knew suddenly that she understood me. And then the
half-conscious awe and terror some part of me had felt vanished,
and I only realized that Hester was here, and that there was no
terrible gulf of change between us.