ner,
think of the talk it would make."

"Let them talk."

"Ah, Rachel, but the mother! Think how dreadful the day's work has been
to her; and how can she ever get through the evening if she is in a
fright at your not coming down?"

"Dinner parties are one of the most barbarous institutions of past
stupidity," said Rachel, and Grace was reassured. She hovered over
Rachel while Rachel hovered over the sick child, and between her own
exertions and those of two maids, had put her sister into an evening
dress by the time the first carriage arrived. She then rushed to her own
room, made her own toilette, and returned to find Rachel in conference
with Mrs. Kelland, who had come home at last, and was to sit with her
niece during the dinner. Perhaps it was as well for all parties that
this first interview was cut very short, but Rachel's burning cheeks did
not promise much for the impression of ease and indifference she was to
make, as Grace's whispered reminders of "the mother's" distress dragged
her down stairs among the all too curious glances of the assembled
party.

All had been bustle. Not one moment for recollection had yet been
Rachel's. Mr. Grey's words, "Accountable for all," throbbed in her ears
and echoed in her brain--the purple bruises, the red stripes, verging
upon sores, were before her eyes, and the lights, the flowers, the
people and their greetings, were like a dizzy mist. The space before
dinner was happily but brief, and then, as last lady, she came in as a
supernumerary on the other arm of Grace's cavalier, and taking the only
vacant chair, found herself between a squire and Captain Keith, who had
duly been bestowed on Emily Grey.

Here there was a moment's interval of quiet, for the squire was slightly
deaf, and, moreover, regarded her as a little pert girl, not to be
encouraged, while Captain Keith was resigned to the implied homage
of the adorer of his cross; so that, though the buzz of talk and the
clatter of knives and forks roared louder than it had ever seemed to do
since she had been a child, listening from the outside, the immediate
sense of hurry and confusion, and the impossibility of seeing or hearing
anything plainly, began to diminish. She could not think, but she began
to wonder whether any one knew what had happened; and, above all, she
perfectly dreaded the quiet sting of her neighbour's word and eye, in
this consummation of his victory. If he glanced at her, she knew she
could not b