ervous about the traffic," said Rachel.

"Oh! I'm not the least afraid of the traffic, but it's such bad form to
bike in London."

"That, of course, depends on how it's done," said Rachel; "but I am sure
in your ease you need not be afraid."

Ada glared at Rachel, and did not answer.

When the Pratts had taken leave she said to her mother:

"Well, you can have Rachel West if you want to, but if you do I shall go
away. She is only Birmingham, and yet she's just as stuck up as she can
be."

The Pratts were "Liverpool."

"Well, my dear," said Mrs. Pratt with natural pride, "it's well known
no one is good enough for you. But I took to Miss West, and an orphan
and all, with all that money, poor thing!"

"She has no style," said Selina, "but she has a nice face; and she's
coming to stay with Sibbie Loftus next week, when she leaves Vi
Newhaven. She may be Birmingham, Ada, but she's just as thick with
county people as we are."

"I did not rightly make out," said Mrs. Pratt, reflectively, "whether
that tall gentleman, Mr. Vernon, was after Miss West or Hessie Gresley."

"Oh, ma! You always think some one's after somebody else," said Ada,
impatiently, whose high breeding obliged her to be rather peremptory
with her simple parent. "Mr. Vernon is a pauper, and so is Hessie. And,
besides, Hessie is not the kind of girl anybody would want to marry."

"Well, I'm not so sure of that," said Selina. "But if she had had any
chances I know she would have told me, because I told her all about
Captain Cobbett and Mr. Baxter."

CHAPTER XVIII

Le monde est plein de gens qui ne sont pas plus sages.
--LA FONTAINE.

If, after the departure of the Pratts, Rachel had hoped for a word with
Hester, she was doomed to disappointment. Mr. Gresley took the seat on
the sofa beside Rachel which Ada Pratt had vacated, and after a few
kindly eulogistic remarks on the Bishop of Southminster and the
responsibilities of wealth, he turned the conversation into the
well-worn groove of Warpington.

Rachel proved an attentive listener, and after Mr. Gresley had furnished
her at length with nutritious details respecting parochial work, he went
on:

"I am holding this evening a temperance meeting in the Parish Room. I
wish, Miss West, that I could persuade you to stay for it, and thus
enlist your sympathies in a matter of vital importance."

"They have been enlisted in it for the last te