It was so great a relief that Mr. Clare could hardly bring himself to

accept the sacrifice of the honeymoon, and though there could be little

doubt which way the discussion would end, he had not yielded when the

ponies bore off Rachel on Monday morning.

Timber End was certainly a delightful place. Alick had railed it a

cockney villa, but it was in good taste, and very fair and sweet with

flowers and shade. Bessie's own rooms, where she made Rachel charmingly

at home, were wonderful in choiceness and elegance, exciting Rachel's

surprise how it could be possible to be so sumptuously lodged in such

a temporary abode, for the house was only hired for a few months, while

Gowanbrae was under repair. It was within such easy reach of London that

Bessie had been able from thence to go through the more needful season

gaieties; and she had thought it wise, both for herself and Lord Keith,

not to enter on their full course. It sounded very moderate and prudent,

and Rachel felt vexed with herself and Alick for recollecting a certain

hint of his, that Lady Keith felt herself more of a star in her own old

neighbourhood than she could be in London, and wisely abstained from a

full flight till she had tried her wings. It was much pleasanter to go

along with Bessie's many far better and more affectionate reasons for

prudence, and her minutely personal confidences about her habits,

hopes, and fears, given with a strong sense of her own importance and

consideration, yet with a warm sisterly tone that made them tokens of

adoption, and with an arch drollery that invested them with a sort of

grace. The number of engagements that she mentioned in town and country

did indeed seem inconsistent with the prudence she spoke of with regard

to her own health, or with her attention to that of her husband; but it

appeared that all were quite necessary and according to his wishes,

and the London ones were usually for the sake of trying to detach his

daughter, Mrs. Comyn Menteith, from the extravagant set among whom she

had fallen. Bessie was excessively diverting in her accounts of

her relations with this scatter-brained step-daughter of hers, and

altogether showed in the most flattering manner how much more thoroughly

she felt herself belonging to her brother's wife. If she had ever been

amazed or annoyed at Alick's choice, she had long ago surmounted the

feeling, or put it out of sight, and she judiciously managed to leap

over all that had passed since the beginning of the intimacy that had

arisen at the station door at Avoncester. It was very flattering, and

would have been perfectly delightful, if Rachel had not found herself

wearying for Alick, and wondering whether at the end of seven months she

should be as contented as Bessie seemed, to know her husband to be in

the sitting-room without one sight of him.




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