revail in
this question regarding the young man from the brewery. But Mr.
Comfort, in what few words he had said on this part of the subject,
had shown no consideration whatever for Mrs. Prime. "Then she'll
behave very wickedly," he had said. "But I'm afraid Mrs. Prime has
learned to think too much of her own opinion lately. If that's what
she has got by going to Mr. Prong she had better have remained in her
own parish." After that, nothing more was said about Mrs. Prime.

"Oh, let her go; there'll be no harm." That had been Mr. Comfort's
dictum about the evening party. Such as it was, Mrs. Ray felt herself
bound to be guided by it. She had told Rachel that she would ask the
clergyman's advice, and take it, whatever it might be. Nevertheless
she did not find herself to be easy as she walked home. Mr. Comfort's
latter teachings tended to upset all the convictions of her life.
According to his teaching, as uttered in the sanctum of his own
study, young men were not to be regarded as ravening wolves. And that
meeting in the churchyard, which had utterly overwhelmed Dorothea
by the weight of its iniquity, and which even to her had been
very terrible, was a mere nothing;--a venial accident on Rachel's
part, and the most natural proceeding in the world on the part of
Luke Rowan! That it was natural enough for a wolf Mrs. Ray could
understand; but she was now told that the lamb might go out and meet
the wolf without any danger! And then those questions about Rowan's
share in the brewery, and Mr. Comfort's ready assertion that the
young wolf,--man or wolf, as the case might be,--was well to do in
the world! In fact Mrs. Ray's interview with her clergyman had not
gone exactly as she had expected, and she was bewildered; and the
path into evil,--if it was a path into evil,--was made so easy and
pleasant! Mrs. Ray had already considered the difficult question of
Rachel's journey to the party, and journey home again; but provision
was now made for all that in a way that was indeed very comfortable,
but which might make Rachel very vain. She was to be ushered into
Mrs. Tappitt's drawing-room under the wing of the most august lady
of the neighbourhood. After that, for the remaining half-hour of her
walk home, Mrs. Ray gave her mind up to the consideration of what
dress Rachel should wear.

When Mrs. Ray reached her own gate, Rachel was in the garden waiting
for her. "Well, mamma?" she said. "Is Dorothea at home?" Mrs. Ray
asked; a