"Yes," said the Colonel; "I was recollecting the gracious vision she

used to be at all our chief's parties."

"Vision, you call her, who lived in the house with her? What do you

think she was to us--poor wretches--coming up from barracks where Mrs.

O'Shaughnessy was our cynosure? There was not one of us to whom she

was not Queen of the East, and more, with that innocent, soft, helpless

dignity of hers!"

"And Sir Stephen for the first of her vassals," said the Colonel.

"What a change it has been!" said Alick.

"Yes; but a change that has shown her to have been unspoilable. We were

just agreeing on the ball-room perfections of her and your sister in

their several lines."

"Very different lines," said Alick, smiling.

"I can't judge of Fanny's," said Rachel, "but your sister is almost

enough to make one believe there can be some soul in young lady life."

"I did not bring Bessie here to convert you," was the somewhat

perplexing answer.

"Nor has she," said Rachel, "except so far as I see that she can follow

ordinary girls' pursuits without being frivolous in them." Alick bowed

at the compliment.

"And she has been a sunbeam," added Rachel, "we shall all feel graver

and cloudier without her."

"Yes," said Colonel Keith, "and I am glad Mr. Clare has such a sunbeam

for his parsonage. What a blessing she will be there!" he added, as he

watched Bessie's graceful way of explaining to his brother some little

matter in behalf of the shy mother of a shy girl. Thinking he might be

wanted, Colonel Keith went forward to assist, and Rachel continued, "I

do envy that power of saying the right thing to everybody!"

"Don't--it is the greatest snare," was his answer, much amazing her, for

she had her mind full of the two direct personal blunders she had made

towards him.

"It prevents many difficulties and embarrassments."

"Very desirable things."

"Yes; for those that like to laugh, but not for those that are laughed

at," said Rachel.

"More so; the worst of all misfortunes is to wriggle too smoothly

through life."

This was to Rachel the most remarkable part of the evening; as to the

rest, it was like all other balls, a weariness: Grace enjoying herself

and her universal popularity, always either talking or dancing, and her

mother comfortable and dutiful among other mothers; the brilliant figure

and ready grace of Bessie Keith being the one vision that perpetually

flitted in her dreams, and the one ever-recurring recollection that

Captain Keith, the veritable hero of the shell, had been lectured by

her on his own deed! In effect Rachel had never felt so beaten down and

ashamed of herself; so doubtful of her own most positive convictions,

and yet not utterly dissatisfied, and the worst of it was that Emily

Grey was after all carried off without dancing with the hero; and Rachel

felt as if her own opinionativeness had defrauded the poor girl.




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