care, of perplexity. Suddenly she lifted her hands and
struck her temples, with a gesture that looked very like despair.

"What ails you, Rachel?"

The question came from Frederick Massingbird, who had been standing at
the window behind the high desk, unobserved by Rachel. Violently
startled, she sprang up from her seat, her face a glowing crimson,
muttering some disjointed words, to the effect that she did not know
anybody was there.

"What were you and Roy discussing so eagerly in the yard?" continued
Frederick Massingbird. But the words had scarcely escaped his lips, when
the housekeeper, Mrs. Tynn, entered the room. She had a mottled face and
mottled arms, her sleeves just now being turned up to the elbow.

"It was nothing particular, Mr. Frederick," replied Rachel.

"Roy is gone, is he not?" he continued to Rachel.

"Yes, sir."

"Rachel," interposed the housekeeper, "are those things not ready yet,
in the laundry?"

"Not quite. In a quarter of an hour, they say."

The housekeeper, with a word of impatience at the laundry's delay, went
out and crossed the yard towards it. Frederick Massingbird turned again
to Rachel.

"Roy seemed to be grumbling at you."

"He accused me of being the cause of his son's going away. He thinks I
ought to have noticed him."

Frederick Massingbird made no reply. He raised his finger and gently
rubbed it round and round the mark upon his cheek: a habit he had
acquired when a child, and they could not entirely break him of it. He
was seven-and-twenty years of age now, but he was sure to begin rubbing
that mark unconsciously, if in deep thought. Rachel resumed, her tone a
covert one, as if the subject on which she was about to speak might not
be breathed, even to the walls.

"Roy hinted that his son was going to foreign lands. I did not choose to
let him see that I knew anything, so remarked that I had heard he was
gone to London. 'London!' he answered; 'that was only the first
halting-place on the journey!'"

"Did he give any hint about John?"

"Not a word," replied Rachel. "He would not be likely to do that."

"No. Roy can keep counsel, whatever other virtues he may run short of.
Suppose you had joined your fortunes to sighing Luke's, Rachel, and gone
out with him to grow rich together?" added Frederick Massingbird, in a
tone which could be taken for either jest or earnest.

She evidently took it as the latter, and it appeared to call up an angry
spirit. She was vexe