or the
last ten years? Had she not been wondering among her friends, with
charitable volubility, as to what that poor woman at Bragg's End was
to do with her daughter? Had she not been regretting that the young
girl should be growing up so big, and promising to look so coarse?
Was it not natural that she should be miserable when she saw her
taken in hand by Mrs. Butler Cornbury, and made the heroine at her
own party, to the detriment of her own daughters, by the fashionable
lady in catching whom she had displayed so much unfortunate
ingenuity? Under such circumstances how could she do other than
hate Luke Rowan,--than believe him to be the very Mischief,--than
prophesying all manner of bad things for Rachel,--and assist her
husband tooth and nail in his animosity against the sinner?

Augusta was less strong in her feelings than her parents, but
of course she disliked the man who could admire Rachel Ray. As
regards Martha, her dislike to him,--or rather, her judicial
disapproval,--was founded on his social and commercial improprieties.
She understood that he had threatened her father about the
business,--and she had been scandalized in that matter of the
champagne. Cherry was very brave, and still stood up for him before
her mother and sisters;--but even Cherry did not dare to say a word
in his favour before her father. Mr. Tappitt had been driven to
forget himself, and to take a poker in his hand as a weapon of
violence! After that let no one speak a word on the offender's behalf
in Tappitt's house and within Tappitt's hearing!

In that affair of the champagne Rowan was most bitterly injured. He
had ordered it, if not at the request, at least at the instigation
of Mrs. Tappitt;--and he had paid for it. When he left Baslehurst he
owed no shilling to any man in it; and, indeed, he was a man by no
means given to owing money to any one. He was of a spirit masterful,
self-confident, and perhaps self-glorious;--but he was at the same
time honest and independent. That wine had been ordered in some
unusual way,--not at the regular counter, and in the same way the
bill for it had been paid. Griggs, when he made his assertion in the
bar-room at the King's Head, had stated what he believed to be the
truth. The next morning he chanced to hear that the account had been
settled, but not, at the moment, duly marked off the books. As far as
Griggs went that was the end of it. He did not again say that Rowan
owed money to him; but he