"Yes, my dear, but perhaps--don't you think it might be remarked as if

you chose to keep out of sight?"

"Oh, very well."

Rachel followed her mother down, sustained by one hope, that Captain

Keith would be there. No; the Deanery did not greatly patronize the

barracks; there was not much chance of any gentleman under forty,

except, perhaps, in the evening. And at present the dean himself and

one canon were the entire gentleman element among some dozen ladies.

Everybody knew that the cause of delay was the trial of the cruel

matron, and added to the account of Rachel's iniquities their famished

and weary state of expectation, the good Dean gyrating among the groups,

trying to make conversation, which every one felt too fretful and

too hungry to sustain with spirit. Rachel sat it out, trying to talk

whenever she saw her mother's anxious eyes upon her, but failing in

finding anything to say, and much doubting whether her neighbours liked

talking to her.

At last gentlemen began to appear in twos and threes, and each made some

confidence to the womankind that first absorbed him, but no one came in

Rachel's way, and the girl beside her became too unfeignedly curious to

support even the semblance of conversation, but listened for scraps of

intelligence. Something was flying about respecting "a gentleman

who came down by the train," and something about "Lady Temple" and

"admirable," and the young lady seized the first opportunity of

deserting Rachel, and plunging into the melee. Rachel sat on, sick with

suspense, feeling utterly unable to quit her seat. Still they waited,

the whole of the party were not arrived, and here was the curfew

ringing, and that at the Deanery, which always felt injured if it were

seven o'clock before people were in the dining-room! Grace must be

upstairs dressing, but to reach her was impossible!

At last Mr. Grey was announced, and he had mercy upon Rachel; he came up

to her as soon as he could without making her remarkable, and told her

the cause of his delay had been the necessity of committing Mauleverer

upon an accusation by a relation of Colonel Keith, of very extensive

frauds upon Miss Williams's brother. Rachel's illness and the caution

of the Williamses had prevented her from being fully aware of the

complication of their affairs with her own, and she became paler and

paler, as she listened to the partial explanation, though she was hardly

able as yet to understand it.

"The woman?" she asked.

"Sentenced to a year's imprisonment with hard labour, and let me tell

you, Rachel, you had a most narrow escape there! If that army doctor had

not come in time to see the child alive, they could not have chosen

but have an inquest, and no mortal can tell what might have been the

decision about your homoeopathy. You might have been looking forward to

a worse business than this at the next assizes."




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