And the letter-bag is so fat that I could hardly refrain from opening it.
Really, James, you ought to hide the key, or I shall succumb to temptation." Once in the days of her ignorance, when she first came to live at Warpington, Hester had actually turned the key in the lock of the sacred letter-bag when the Gresleys were both late, and had extracted her own letters.

She never did it a second time.

On the contrary, she begged pardon in real regret at having given such deep offence to her brother and his wife, and in astonishment that so simple an action could offend.
She had made an equally distressing blunder in the early days of her life with the Gresleys by taking up the daily paper on its arrival in the afternoon.
"My dear Hester," Mrs.Gresley said, really scandalized, "I am sure you won't mind my saying so, but James has not seen his paper yet." "I have noticed he never by any chance looks at it till the evening, and you always say you never read it," said Hester, deep in a political crisis.
"That is his rule, and a very good rule it is; but he naturally likes to be the _first_ to look at it," said Mrs.Gresley, with a great exercise of patience.

She had heard Hester was clever, but she found her very stupid.

Everything had to be explained to her.
Her tone recalled Hester from the Indian tribal rising and the speech of the Prime Minister to the realities of life.