ever
turned with the slightest preference. So far love for her had run
very smoothly. From her first meetings with him, on those evenings
in which she had hardly spoken to him, his form had filled her eye,
and his words had filled her mind. She had learned to love to see him
before she understood what her heart was doing for her. Gradually,
but very quickly, all her vacant thoughts had been given to him, and
he had become the hero of her life. Now, almost before she had had
time to question herself on the matter, he was her affianced husband.
It had all been so quick and so very gracious that she seemed to
tremble at her own good fortune. There was that one little cloud in
the sky,--that frown on his mother's brow; but now, in the first
glow of her happiness, she could not bring herself to believe that
this cloud would bring a storm. So she sat there dreaming of her
happiness, and longing for her mother's return that she might tell
it all;--that it might be talked of hour after hour, and that Luke's
merits might receive their fitting mention. Her mother was not a
woman who on such an occasion would stint the measure of her praise,
or refuse her child the happiness of her sympathy.

But Rachel knew that she must not let the whole morning pass by in
idle dreams, happy as those dreams were, and closely as they were
allied to her waking life. After a while she jumped up with a start.
"I declare there will be nothing done. Mamma will want her dinner
though I'm ever so much going to be married."

But she had not been long on foot, or done much in preparation of the
cold lamb which it was intended they should eat that day, before she
heard her mother's footsteps on the gravel path. She ran out to the
front door full of her own news, though hardly knowing as yet in what
words she would tell it; but of her mother's news, of any tidings
which there might be to tell as to that interview which had just
taken place in Baslehurst, Rachel did not think much. Nothing that
Dorothea could say would now be of moment. So at least Rachel
flattered herself. And as for Dorothea and all her growlings, had
they not chiefly ended in this;--that the young man did not intend
to present himself as a husband? But he had now done so in a manner
which Rachel felt to be so satisfactory that even Dorothea's
criticism must be disarmed. So Rachel, as she met her mother, thought
only of the tale which she had to tell, and nothing of that which she
was