her once
again. It was not, however, that she doubted Rachel's love,--that she
feared that Rachel was casting her out from her heart, or that she
was learning to hate her. She knew well enough that her child still
loved her. It was this,--that her life had become barren to her,
cold, and altogether tasteless without those thousand little signs of
ever-present affection to which she had been accustomed. If it was to
be always thus between them, what would the world be to her for the
remainder of her days? She could have borne to part with Rachel, had
Rachel married, as in parting with her she would have looked forward
to some future return of her girl's caresses; and in such case she
would at least have felt that her loss had come from no cessation of
the sweet loving nature of their mutual connexion. She would have
wept as she gave Rachel over to a husband, but her tears would have
been sweet as well as bitter. But there was nothing of sweetness
in her tears as she shed them now,--nothing of satisfaction in her
sorrow. If she could get Rachel to talk with her freely on the
matter, if she could find an opportunity for confessing herself to
have been wrong, might it not be that the soft caresses would be
restored to her,--caresses that would be soft, though moistened with
salt tears? But she feared to speak to her child. She knew that
Rachel's face was still hard and stern, and that her voice was not
the voice of other days. She knew that her daughter brooded over
the injury that had been done to her,--though she knew also that no
accusation was made, even in the girl's own bosom, against herself.
She thoroughly understood the state of Rachel's mind, but she was
unable to find the words that might serve to soften it.

"I suppose we may as well go to bed," she said at last, giving the
matter up, at any rate for that evening.

"Mamma, why were you crying when I came into the room?" said Rachel.

"Was I crying, my dear?"

"You are crying still, mamma. Is it I that make you unhappy?"

Mrs. Ray was anxious to declare that the reverse of that was
true,--that it was she who had made the other unhappy; but even
now she could not find the words in which to say this. "No," she
said; "it isn't you. It isn't anybody. I believe it's true what Mr.
Comfort has told us so often when he's preaching. It's all vanity and
vexation. There isn't anything to make anybody happy. I suppose I cry
because I'm foolisher than other people. I d