according to his wishes,
and the London ones were usually for the sake of trying to detach his
daughter, Mrs. Comyn Menteith, from the extravagant set among whom she
had fallen. Bessie was excessively diverting in her accounts of
her relations with this scatter-brained step-daughter of hers, and
altogether showed in the most flattering manner how much more thoroughly
she felt herself belonging to her brother's wife. If she had ever been
amazed or annoyed at Alick's choice, she had long ago surmounted the
feeling, or put it out of sight, and she judiciously managed to leap
over all that had passed since the beginning of the intimacy that had
arisen at the station door at Avoncester. It was very flattering, and
would have been perfectly delightful, if Rachel had not found herself
wearying for Alick, and wondering whether at the end of seven months she
should be as contented as Bessie seemed, to know her husband to be in
the sitting-room without one sight of him.

At luncheon, however, when Lord Keith appeared, nothing could be
prettier than his wife's manner to him--bright, sweet, and with a touch
of graceful deference, at which he always smiled and showed himself
pleased, but Rachel thought him looking much older than in the
autumn--he had little appetite, stooped a good deal, and evidently moved
with pain. He would not go out of doors, and Bessie, after following him
to the library, and spending a quarter of an hour in ministering to his
comfort, took Rachel to sit by a cool dancing fountain in the garden,
and began with some solicitude to consult her whether he could be really
suffering from sciatica, or, as she had lately begun to suspect, from
the effects of a blow from the end of a scaffold-pole that had been run
against him when taking her through a crowded street. Rachel spoke of
advice.

"What you, Rachel! you who despised allopathy!"

"I have learnt not to despise advice."

And Bessie would not trench on Rachel's experiences.

"There's some old Scotch doctor to whom his faith is given, and that I
don't half believe in. If he would see our own Mr. Harvey here it would
be quite another thing; but it is of no use telling him that Alick would
never have had an available knee but for Mr. Harvey's management. He
persists in leaving me to my personal trust in him, but for himself he
won't see him at any price! Have you seen Mr. Harvey?"

"I have seen no one."

"Oh, I forgot, you are not arrived yet; but--"

"