rom
whence he came.

"But she has quite made up her mind about it," continued Mrs. Ray;
"and when I saw that I didn't say very much against it. What was
the use? It isn't as though he wasn't quite respectable. He is a
clergyman, you know, my dear, though he never was at any of the
regular colleges; and he might be a bishop, just as much as if he had
been; so they tell me. And I really don't think that she would ever
have come back to the cottage,--not unless you had promised to have
been ruled by her in everything."

"I certainly shouldn't have done that;" and Rachel, as she made this
assurance with some little obstinacy in her voice, told herself that
for the future she meant to be ruled by a very different person
indeed.

"No, I suppose not; and I'm sure I shouldn't have asked you, because
I think it isn't the thing, dragging people away out of their own
parishes, here and there, to anybody's church. And I told her that
though I would of course go and hear Mr. Prong now and then if she
married him, I wouldn't leave Mr. Comfort, not as a regular thing.
But she didn't seem to mind that now, much as she used always to be
saying about it."

"And when is it to be, mamma?"

"On Friday; that is, to-morrow."

"To-morrow!"

"That is, she's to go and tell him to-morrow that she means to take
him,--or he's to come to her at Miss Pucker's lodgings. It's not to
be wondered at when one sees Miss Pucker, really; and I'm not sure
I'd not have done the same if I'd been living with her too; only I
don't think I ever should have begun. I think it's living with Miss
Pucker has made her do it; I do indeed, my dear. Well, now that I
have told you, I suppose I may as well go and get ready for dinner."

"I'll come with you, mamma. The potatoes are strained, and Kitty
can put the things on the table. Mamma"--and now they were on the
stairs,--"I've got something to tell also."

We'll leave Mrs. Ray to eat her dinner, and Rachel to tell her story,
merely adding a word to say that the mother did not stint the measure
of her praise, or refuse her child the happiness of her sympathy.
That evening was probably the happiest of Rachel's existence,
although its full proportions of joy were marred by an unforeseen
occurrence. At four o'clock a note came from Rowan to his "Dearest
Rachel," saying that he had been called away by telegraph to London
about that "horrid brewery business." He would write from there. But
Rachel was almost as hap