glad--or
so each one individually thought--to see them. She was an attractive
person, certainly, as she lay on her sofa. Her hair had turned white
prematurely early, it enhanced the effect of the delicate faded
colouring and the soft brown eyes. The sweet brightness of her manner
was mingled with dignity, with the comprehensive sympathy and pliability
of a woman of the world; an innate distinction of mind and person
radiated from her looks. Those who watched the general grace and repose
of her demeanour and surroundings involuntarily felt that there might be
advantages in a condition of life which prevented the mere thought of
being hot, untidy, hurried, like some of the ardent ladies who used to
rush into her room between a committee meeting and a tea-party and tell
her breathlessly of their flustered doings. Rachel had inherited
something of her mother's dainty charm. She had the same brown eyes and
delicate features, framed by bright brown hair. It was certainly
encouraging to those who looked upon the daughter to see in the mother
what effect the course of the years was likely to have on such a
personality. There was not much dread in the future when confronted with
such a picture. But in truth, as far as most of the spectators who
frequented the house were concerned, Rachel's personality had been
merged in her mother's, and any comparison between the two was perhaps
more likely to be in the direction of wondering whether Rachel in the
course of years would, as time went on, become so absolutely delightful
a human product as Lady Gore. Rachel's own attitude on this score was
entirely consonant with that of others. Her mother was the centre of her
life, the object of her passionate devotion, her guide, her ideal. It
was when Rachel was seventeen that Lady Gore became helpless and
dependent, and the girl suddenly found that their positions were in some
ways reversed; it was she who had to take care of her mother, to
inculcate prudence upon her, to minister incessantly to her daily wants;
there was added to the daughter's love the yearning care that a loving
woman feels for a helpless charge, and there was hardly room for
anything else in her life. Rachel, fortunately for herself and for
others, had no startling originality; no burning desire, arrived at
womanhood, to strike out a path for herself. She was unmoved by the
conviction which possesses most of her young contemporaries that the
obvious road cannot be the one