nd on being informed that Dorothea was at work within, she
desired Rachel to follow her up to her bedroom. When there she told
her budget of news,--not stinting her child of the gratification
which it was sure to give. She said nothing about Luke Rowan and
his means, keeping that portion of Mr. Comfort's recommendation
to herself; but she declared it out as a fact, that Rachel was to
accept the invitation, and to be carried to the party by Mrs. Butler
Cornbury. "Oh, mamma! Dear mamma!" said Rachel, who was leaning
against the side of the bed. Then she gave a long sigh, and a bright
colour came over her face,--almost as though she were blushing. But
she said no more at the moment, but allowed her mind to run off and
revel in its own thoughts. She had indeed longed to go to this party,
though she had taught herself to believe that she could bear being
told that she was not to go without disappointment. "And now we must
let Dorothea know," said Mrs. Ray. "Yes,--we must let her know," said
Rachel; but her mind was away, straying, I fear, under the churchyard
elms with Luke Rowan, and looking at the arm amidst the clouds. He
had said that it was stretched out as though to take her; and she had
never shaken off from her imagination the idea that it was his arm on
which she had been bidden to look,--the arm which had afterwards held
her when she strove to go.

It was tea-time before courage was mustered for telling the facts to
Mrs. Prime. Mrs. Prime, after dinner, had gone into Baslehurst; but
the meeting at Miss Pucker's had not been a regular full gathering,
and Mrs. Prime had come back to tea. There was no hot toast, and no
clotted cream. It may appear selfish on the part of Mrs. Ray and
Rachel that they should have kept such good things for their only
little private banquets, but, in truth, such delicacies did not suit
Mrs. Prime. Nice things aggravated her spirits and made her fretful.
She liked the tea to be stringy and bitter, and she liked the bread
to be stale;--as she preferred also that her weeds should be battered
and old. She was approaching that stage of discipline at which ashes
become pleasant eating, and sackcloth is grateful to the skin. The
self-indulgences of the saints in this respect often exceed anything
that is done by the sinners.

"Dorothea," said Mrs. Ray, and she looked down upon the dark dingy
fluid in her cup as she spoke, "I have been up to Mr. Comfort's
to-day."

"Yes; I heard you say you w