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Hillary Rodham Clinton held a private meeting with Senator Elizabeth Warren in December, seeking to cultivate the increasingly influential senator and to grapple with issues raised by a restive Democratic left, such as income inequality.

The two met at the Northwest Washington home of the Clintons, without aides and at Mrs. Clinton’s invitation.

Mrs. Clinton solicited policy ideas and suggestions from Ms. Warren, according to a Democrat briefed on the meeting, who called it “cordial and productive.” Mrs. Clinton, who has been seeking advice from a range of scholars, advocates and officials, did not ask Ms. Warren to consider endorsing her likely presidential candidacy.

The conversation occurred at a moment when Ms. Warren’s clout had become increasingly evident. After the November election, Senator Harry Reid, the Democratic leader, appointed Ms. Warren, a Massachusetts freshman, to a leadership role in the Senate; she led a high-profile effort to strip a spending bill of rules sought by large banks; and a patchwork of liberal groups began a movement to draft her into the presidential race.

Ms. Warren has repeatedly said she is not running for president, and she has taken no steps that would indicate otherwise. Still, she is intent on pushing a robust populist agenda, and her confidants have suggested that she would use her Senate perch during the 2016 campaign to nudge Mrs. Clinton to embrace causes like curtailing the power of large financial institutions.

The get-together highlighted an early challenge for Mrs. Clinton, who as the Democrats’ leading contender for 2016 has all but cleared the field for her party’s primary. She is intent on developing an economic platform that can speak to her party’s populist wing and excite working class voters without alienating allies in the business community.

That Mrs. Clinton reached out to Ms. Warren suggested that she was aware of how much the debate over economic issues had shifted even during the relatively short time she was away from domestic politics while serving as secretary of state.

Mrs. Clinton was often criticized by the right as a doctrinaire liberal during her husband’s presidency and, as a presidential candidate, ultimately ran as more of an economic populist than Mr. Obama did. But she is now seen by some on the left as insufficiently tough on Wall Street. That perception, denounced by allies as unfair, has stuck, in part, because of her husband’s policies and because of the lucrative speaking fees she has collected from financial firms and private equity groups since she left the State Department in early 2013.

Some of Mrs. Clinton’s supporters, frustrated by the attention and adulation generated by Ms. Warren, noted Tuesday that the two actually hold similar positions on a range of economic issues, though Ms. Warren’s rhetoric has been more fiery. Mrs. Clinton, hoping to delay formally starting her candidacy for as long as possible, has refrained from detailed discussions of economic policy. In recent weeks, though, she has become more vocal, using Twitter to offer support for the Dodd-Frank financial overhaul, for instance.

The one-on-one meeting also represented a step toward relationship building for two women who do not know each other well. And for Mrs. Clinton, it was a signal that she would prefer Ms. Warren’s counsel delivered in person, as a friendly insider, rather than on national television or in opinion articles. It may also indicate that Mrs. Clinton, who was criticized for running an extremely guarded campaign in 2008, has learned from her mistakes and will reach out more regularly.

Aides to Mrs. Clinton did not respond to requests for comment about the meeting, and aides to Ms. Warren could not be reached.

The meeting in December fell two months after a more awkward encounter: Mrs. Clinton and Ms. Warren crossed paths at a Massachusetts rally for Martha Coakley, the Democratic nominee for governor there last year. At that event, Mrs. Clinton repeatedly described Ms. Warren as a champion against special interests and big banks; Ms. Warren, in turn, barely acknowledged Mrs. Clinton, who was the featured guest.

Both Mrs. Clinton and her husband appeared eager to keep a close eye on Ms. Warren; Bill Clinton has appeared sensitive to her oblique criticism of his deregulation of financial institutions. Beyond policy differences, the Clintons are anxious to demonstrate that they, like Ms. Warren, appreciate the economic difficulties many Americans are facing.

The December meeting recalled another private session between Mrs. Clinton and a Democratic upstart: In 2005, shortly after he was sworn in to the Senate, Barack Obama paid a visit to Mrs. Clinton in her Senate office. In that instance, though, it was Mr. Obama who was seeking counsel.