as always beside her protecting her, and in the air always
a noise of bells. As she grew older that picture was not dimmed in the
vision of it, but only she doubted its authenticity. Nevertheless, the
memory provided a standard and before that standard these governesses
were compelled to yield.

There were, of course, her uncles and her aunt. Aunt Adela was more
immediately concerned in the duty of her niece's progress than any
other, but as a duty she always, from the first, represented it. From
that first morning, when she had given her cold dry cheek to the little
girl to kiss until now, three days before Rachel's freedom, she had made
no suggestion nor provocation of affection. "It is a business, my dear
niece," she seemed to say, "that, for the sake of our family, we must go
through. Let us be honest and deny all foolish sentiment."

To this Rachel was only too ready to agree. She did not like her Aunt
Adela. Aunt Adela resembled a dry, wintry tree, a tree whose branches
cracked and snapped, a tree that gave no hope of any spring. Rachel
always saw Aunt Adela as an ugly necessity; she was not a thing of
terror, but merely something unpleasant, something frigid and of a
lukewarm hostility.

Then there were the uncles--Uncle Vincent, Uncle John, and Uncle
Richard.

Uncle Vincent, the Duke, was over sixty now and very like his mother,
withered and sharp and shrivelled, but he was without her terror, being
merely dapper and insignificant, and his sleek hair (there was only a
little of it very carefully spread out) and his white spats were the
most prominent things about him. He was fond, Rachel gathered, of his
racing and his club and his meals, and he was unmarried.

Uncle Richard had been twice Prime Minister and was a widower. He lived
in a beautiful house in Grosvenor Street, and collected wine and fans
and first editions. He was always very kind to Rachel, and she liked his
tall thin figure, bent a little, with his high white forehead,
gold-rimmed pince-nez on the Beaminster nose, and beautiful long white
hands. She went to have tea with him sometimes, and this was an hour of
freedom and delight, because he talked to her about the Elizabethans and
Homer, and, when she was older, Nietzsche and Kant. She liked the warm
rooms, with their thick curtains and soft carpets and rows and rows of
gleaming glittering books, and he always had tea in such beautiful china
and the silver teapot shone like a mirror. But she