o answer her sister. "You wouldn't have disturbed us at all,
even if you had come a little sooner. But you are not too late for
tea, if you'll have some."

"I've taken tea, thank you, two hours ago;" and she spoke as though
there were much virtue in the distance of time at which she had
eaten and drunk, as compared with the existing rakish and dissipated
appearance of her mother's tea-table. Tea-things about at eight
o'clock! It was all of a piece together.

"We are very glad to see you, at any rate," said Mrs. Ray; "I was
afraid you would not have come out to us at all."

"Perhaps it would have been better if I had not come."

"I don't see that," said Rachel. "I think it's much better. I hate
quarrelling, and I hope you're going to stay now you are here."

"No, Rachel, I'm not going to stay. Mother, it is impossible I should
see that young man walking out of your house in that way without
speaking of it; although I'm well aware that my voice here goes for
nothing now."

"That was Mr. Luke Rowan," said Mrs. Ray.

"I know very well who it was," said Mrs. Prime, shaking her head.
"Rachel will remember that I've seen him before."

"And you'll be likely to see him again if you stay here, Dolly," said
Rachel. This she said out of pure mischief,--that sort of mischief
which her sister's rebuke was sure to engender.

"I dare say," said Mrs. Prime; "whenever he pleases, no doubt. But I
shall not see him. If you approve of it, mother, of course I can say
nothing further,--nothing further than this, that I don't approve of
such things."

"But what ails him that he shouldn't be a very good young man?" says
Mrs. Ray. "And if it was so that he was growing fond of Rachel, why
shouldn't he? And if Rachel was to like him, I don't see why she
shouldn't like somebody some day as well as other girls." Mrs. Ray
had been a little put beside herself or she would hardly have said
so much in Rachel's presence. She had forgotten, probably, that
Rachel had not as yet been made acquainted with the nature of Rowan's
proposal.

"Mamma, don't talk in that way. There's nothing of that kind," said
Rachel.

"I don't believe there is," said Mrs. Prime.

"I say there is then," said Mrs. Ray; "and it's very ill-natured in
you, Dorothea, to speak and think in that way of your sister."

"Oh, very well. I see that I had better go back to Baslehurst at
once."

"So it is very ill-natured. I can't bear to have these sort of
quarrels; but I