difference. And--I'll tell you more; I do particularly wish to go to
Mrs. Tappitt's, because of all that Dolly has said about,--about Mr.
Rowan. I wish to show her and you that I am not afraid to meet him.
Why should I be afraid of any one?"

"You should be afraid of doing wrong."

"Yes; and if it were wrong to meet any other young man I ought not to
go; but there is nothing specially wrong in my meeting him. She has
said very unkind things about it, and I intend that she shall know
that I will not notice them." As Rachel spoke Mrs. Ray looked up at
her, and was surprised by the expression of unrelenting purpose which
she saw there. There had come over her face that motion in her eyes
and that arching of her brows which Mrs. Ray had seen before, but
which hitherto she had hardly construed into their true meaning. Now
she was beginning to construe these signs aright, and to understand
that there would be difficulty in managing her little family.

The conversation ended in an undertaking on Rachel's part that she
would not answer the note till the following day. "Of course that
means," said Rachel, "that I am to answer it just as Dolly thinks
fit." But she repented of these words as soon as they were spoken,
and repented of them almost in ashes when her mother declared, with
tears in her eyes, that it was not her intention to be guided by
Dorothea in this matter. "You ought not to say such things as that,
Rachel," she said. "No, mamma, I ought not; for there is no one so
good as you are; and if you'll say that you think I ought not to go,
I'll write to Cherry, and explain it to her at once. I don't care a
bit about the party,--as far as the party is concerned." But Mrs. Ray
would not now pronounce any injunction on the matter. She had made
up her mind as to what she would do. She would call upon Mr. Comfort
at the parsonage, explain the whole thing to him, and be guided
altogether by his counsel.

Not a word was said in the cottage about the invitation when Mrs.
Prime came back in the evening, nor was a word said on the following
morning. Mrs. Ray had declared her intention of going up to the
parsonage, and neither of her daughters had asked her why she was
going. Rachel had no need to ask, for she well understood her
mother's purpose. As to Mrs. Prime, she was in these days black and
full of gloom, asking but few questions, watching the progress of
events with the eyes of an evil-singing prophetess, but keeping back