wished you to have known a great deal
more about any young man before she encouraged you to regard him in
that way, than you can possibly know of Mr. Rowan."

"But how are they to know each other, Dorothea, if they mustn't see
one another?" said Mrs. Ray.

"I have no doubt he knows how to dance very cleverly. As Rachel
is being taught to live now, that may perhaps be the chief thing
necessary."

This blow did reach poor Mrs. Ray, who a week or two since would
certainly have agreed with her elder daughter in thinking that
dancing was sinful. Into this difficulty, however, she had been
brought by Mr. Comfort's advice. "But what else can she know of him?"
continued Mrs. Prime. "He is able to maintain a wife you say,--and
is that all that is necessary to consider in the choice of a husband,
or is that the chief thing? Oh, mother, you should think of your
responsibility at such a time as this. It may be very pleasant for
Rachel to have this young man as her lover, very pleasant while it
lasts. But what--what--what?" Then Mrs. Prime was so much oppressed
by the black weight of her own thoughts, that she was unable further
to express them.

"I do think about it," said Mrs. Ray. "I think about it more than
anything else."

"And have you concluded that in this way you can best secure Rachel's
welfare? Oh, mother!"

"He always goes to church on Sundays," said Rachel. "I don't know why
you are to make him out so bad." This she said with her eyes fixed
upon her mother, for it seemed to her that her mother was almost
about to yield.

A good deal might be said in excuse for Mrs. Prime. She was not
only acting for the best in accordance with her own lights, but the
doctrine which she now preached was the doctrine which had been held
by the inhabitants of the cottage at Bragg's End. The fault, if fault
there was, had been in the teaching under which had lived both Mrs.
Prime and her mother. In their desire to live in accordance with that
teaching, they had agreed to regard all the outer world, that is
all the world except their world, as wicked and dangerous. They had
never conceived that in forming this judgment they were deficient in
charity; nor, indeed, were they conscious that they had formed any
such judgment. In works of charity they had striven to be abundant,
but had taken simply the Dorcas view of that virtue. The younger and
more energetic woman had become sour in her temper under the _regime_
of this life, while