l with the rest of the family. But it was impossible (with my
religious views) to rouse myself in a few days only from the shock which
this death had caused me. I was informed, moreover, that the rector of
Frizinghall was to read the service. Having myself in past times seen
this clerical castaway making one of the players at Lady Verinder's
whist-table, I doubt, even if I had been fit to travel, whether I should
have felt justified in attending the ceremony.

Lady Verinder's death left her daughter under the care of her
brother-in-law, Mr. Ablewhite the elder. He was appointed guardian
by the will, until his niece married, or came of age. Under these
circumstances, Mr. Godfrey informed his father, I suppose, of the new
relation in which he stood towards Rachel. At any rate, in ten days from
my aunt's death, the secret of the marriage-engagement was no secret
at all within the circle of the family, and the grand question for Mr.
Ablewhite senior--another confirmed castaway!--was how to make himself
and his authority most agreeable to the wealthy young lady who was going
to marry his son.

Rachel gave him some trouble at the outset, about the choice of a place
in which she could be prevailed upon to reside. The house in Montagu
Square was associated with the calamity of her mother's death. The
house in Yorkshire was associated with the scandalous affair of the
lost Moonstone. Her guardian's own residence at Frizinghall was open
to neither of these objections. But Rachel's presence in it, after her
recent bereavement, operated as a check on the gaieties of her cousins,
the Miss Ablewhites--and she herself requested that her visit might
be deferred to a more favourable opportunity. It ended in a proposal,
emanating from old Mr. Ablewhite, to try a furnished house at Brighton.
His wife, an invalid daughter, and Rachel were to inhabit it together,
and were to expect him to join them later in the season. They would see
no society but a few old friends, and they would have his son Godfrey,
travelling backwards and forwards by the London train, always at their
disposal.

I describe this aimless flitting about from one place of residence to
another--this insatiate restlessness of body and appalling stagnation
of soul--merely with the view to arriving at results. The event which
(under Providence) proved to be the means of bringing Rachel Verinder
and myself together again, was no other than the hiring of the house at
Brighton