At luncheon, however, when Lord Keith appeared, nothing could be prettier than his wife’s manner to him—bright, sweet, and with a touch of graceful deference, at which he always smiled and showed himself pleased, but Rachel thought him looking much older than in the autumn—he had little appetite, stooped a good deal, and evidently moved with pain. He would not go out of doors, and Bessie, after following him to the library, and spending a quarter of an hour in ministering to his comfort, took Rachel to sit by a cool dancing fountain in the garden, and began with some solicitude to consult her whether he could be really suffering from sciatica, or, as she had lately begun to suspect, from the effects of a blow from the end of a scaffold-pole that had been run against him when taking her through a crowded street. Rachel spoke of advice.
“What you, Rachel! you who despised allopathy!”
“I have learnt not to despise advice.”
And Bessie would not trench on Rachel’s experiences.
“There’s some old Scotch doctor to whom his faith is given, and that I don’t half believe in. If he would see our own Mr. Harvey here it would be quite another thing; but it is of no use telling him that Alick would never have had an available knee but for Mr. Harvey’s management. He persists in leaving me to my personal trust in him, but for himself he won’t see him at any price! Have you seen Mr. Harvey?”
“I have seen no one.”
“Oh, I forgot, you are not arrived yet; but—”
“There’s someone,” exclaimed Rachel, nervously; and in fact a young man was sauntering towards them. Bessie rose with a sort of annoyance, and “Never mind, my dear, he is quite inoffensive, we’ll soon get rid of him.” Then, as he greeted her with “Good morning, Lady Keith, I thought I should find you here,” she quickly replied,
“If you had been proper behaved and gone to the door, you would have known that I am not at home.”
He smiled, and came nearer.
“No, I am not at home, and, what is more, I do not mean to be. My uncle will be here directly,” she added, in a fee-faw-fum tone.
“Then it is not true that your brother and his bride are arrived?”
“True in the same sense as that I am at home. There she is, you see—only you are not to see her on any account,” as a bow necessarily passed between him and Rachel. “Now mind you have not been introduced to Mrs. Keith, and if you utter a breath that will bring the profane crowd in shoals upon the Rectory, I shall never forgive you.”
“Then I am afraid we must not hope to see you at the bazaar for the idiots.”
“No, indeed,” Bessie answered, respecting Rachel’s gesture of refusal; “no one is to infringe her incog. under penalty of never coming here again.”
“You are going?” he added to Bessie; “indeed, that was what brought me here. My sisters sent me to ask whether they may shelter themselves under your matronly protection, for my mother dreads the crush.”
“I suppose, as they put my name down, that I must go, but you know I had much rather give the money outright. It is a farce to call a bazaar charity.”
“Call it what you will, it is one device for a little sensation.”
Rachel’s only sensation at that moment was satisfaction at the sudden appearance of Ranger’s white head, the sure harbinger of his master and Alick, and she sprang up to meet them in the shrubbery path—all her morbid shyness at the sight of a fresh face passing away when her hand was within Alick’s arm. When they came forth upon the lawn, Alick’s brow darkened for a moment, and there was a formal exchange of greetings as the guest retreated.
“I am so sorry,” began Bessie at once; “I had taken precautions against invasion, but he did not go to the front door. I do so hope Rachel has not been fluttered.”
“I thought he
