as it not hard upon her
that she should be subjected to the misery of such discussion, seeing
that she had given no hope, either to her lover or to herself, till
she had received full warranty for doing so? She would do what her
mother should bid her, let it be what it might; but she would be
wronged,--she felt that she would be wronged and injured, grievously
injured, if her mother should now bid her think of Rowan as one
thinks of those that are gone.

She entered the cottage slowly, and turning into the parlour, found
her mother seated there on the old sofa, opposite to the fireplace.
She was seated there in stiff composure, waiting the work which she
had to do. It was no customary place of hers, and she was a woman
who, in the ordinary occupations of her life, never deserted her
customary places. She had an old easy chair near the fireplace, and
another smaller chair close to the window, and in one of these she
might always be found, unless when, on special occasions like the
present, some great thing had occurred to throw her out of the
grooves of her life.

"Well, mamma?" said Rachel, coming in and standing before her mother.
Mrs. Ray, before she spoke, looked up into her child's face, and was
afraid. "Well, mamma, what has Mr. Comfort said?"

Was it not hard for Mrs. Ray that at such a moment she should have
had no sort of husband on whom to lean? Does the reader remember that
in the opening words of this story Mrs. Ray was described as a woman
who specially needed some standing-corner, some post, some strong
prop to bear her weight,--some marital authority by which she might
be guided? Such prop and such guiding she had never needed more
sorely than she needed them now. She looked up into Rachel's face
before she spoke, and was afraid. "He has been here, my dear," she
said, "and has gone away."

"Yes, mamma, I knew that," said Rachel. "I saw his phaeton drive off;
that's why I came over from Mrs. Sturt's."

Rachel's voice was hard, and there was no comfort in it. It was so
hard that Mrs. Ray felt it to be unkind. No doubt Rachel suffered;
but did not she suffer also? Would not she have given blood from her
breast, like the maternal pelican, to have secured from that clerical
counsellor a verdict that might have been comforting to her child?
Would she not have made any sacrifice of self for such a verdict,
even though the effecting of it must have been that she herself would
have been left alone and desert