A Life for a Love by L.T. Meade

Esther Helps still took charge of her father's house in Acacia Villas. She was still Esther Helps. Perhaps a more beautiful Esther than of old; a little steadier, too, a little graver -- altogether a better girl.

For some unaccountable reason, after that night at the theatre when Wyndham had sat by her side and taken her back from destruction to her father's arms, she had almost ceased to flirt. She said nothing now about marrying a gentleman some day, and as the men who were not gentlemen found she would have nothing to do with them, it began to be an almost understood thing among her friends that Esther, lovely as she was, would not marry. This resolve on her part, for it amounted to an unspoken resolve, was followed by other changes. She turned her attention to her hitherto sadly neglected mind. She read poetry with Cherry, and history and literature generally by herself. Then she tried to improve her mode of speech, and studied works on etiquette, and for a short time became frightfully stilted and artificial. This phase, however, did hot last long. The girl had really a warm and affectionate heart, and that heart all of a sudden had been set on fire. The flame never went out. It was a holy flame, and it raised and purified her whole nature.