Not only Ermine, but other inhabitants of Avonmouth found the world

more flat in his absence. Rachel's interest was lessened in her readings

after she had lost the pleasure of discussion, and she asked herself

many times whether the tedium were indeed from love, or if it were

simply from the absence of an agreeable companion. "I will try myself,"

she said to herself, "if I am heartily interested in my occupations by

the end of the next week, then I shall believe myself my own woman!"

But in going back to her occupations, she was more than ordinarily

sensible of their unsatisfactoriness. One change had come over her in

the last few months. She did not so much long for a wider field, as for

power to do the few things within her reach more thoroughly. Her late

discussions had, as it were, opened a second eye, that saw two sides

of questions that she had hitherto thought had only one, and she was

restless and undecided between them, longing for some impulse from

within or without, and hoping, for her own dignity and consistency's

sake, that it was not only Colonel Keith's presence which had rendered

this summer the richest in her life.

A test was coming for her, she thought, in the person of Miss Keith.

Judging by the brother, Rachel expected a tall fair dreamy blonde,

requiring to be taught a true appreciation of life and its duties, and

whether the training of this young girl would again afford her food for

eagerness and energy, would, as she said to herself, show whether her

affections were still her own. Moreover, there was the great duty of

deciding whether the brother were worthy of Fanny!

It chanced to be convenient that Rachel should go to Avoncester on

the day of the arrival, and call at the station for the traveller. She

recollected how, five months previously, she had there greeted Fanny,

and had seen the bearded apparition since regarded, with so much

jealousy, and now with such a strangely mixed feeling. This being a far

more indifferent errand, she did not go on the platform, but sat in the

carriage reading the report of the Social Science Congress, until

the travellers began to emerge, and Captain Keith (for he had had his

promotion) came up to her with a young lady who looked by no means like

his sister. She was somewhat tall, and in that matter alone realized

Rachel's anticipations, for she was black-eyed, and her dark hair was

crepe and turned back from a face of the plump contour, and slightly

rosy complexion that suggested the patches of the last century; as

indeed Nature herself seemed to have thought when planting near the

corner of the mouth a little brown mole, that added somehow to the

piquancy of the face, not exactly pretty, but decidedly attractive under

the little round hat, and in the point device, though simple and plainly

coloured travelling dress.




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