“Nothing belonging to me is to gain profit by her self-denial,” said Alick, gravely.  “You cannot do less than give her what she gave for it, if you enter on the transaction at all.”

“You mean that it would look shabby.  You see we womankind never quite know the code of the world on such matters,” she said, candidly.

“There is something that makes codes unnecessary, Bessie,” he said.

“Ah!  I can make allowances.  It is a cruel stroke.  I don’t wonder you can’t bear to see any one else on her palfrey; above all as a sacrifice to the landscape painter.”

“Then spare my feelings, and send the mare to Bishopsworthy,” said Alick, as usual too careless of the imputation to take the trouble to rebut it or to be disconcerted.

Bessie was much tickled at his acceptance, and laughed heartily.

“To be sure,” she said, “it is past concealment now.  You must have been very far gone, indeed, to have been taken in to suppose me to be making capital of her ‘charitable purposes.’”

“Your acting is too like life,” he said, not yet induced to laugh, and she rattled on with her droll, sham sentimental air.  “Is it the long words, Alick, or is it ‘the great eyes, my dear;’ or is it—­oh, yes, I know what is the great attraction—­that the Homestead doesn’t possess a single spot where one could play at croquet!”

“Quite irresistible!” replied Alick, and Bessie retreated from the colloquy still not laughing at but with him; that is, if the odd, quaint, inward mirth which only visibly lengthened his sleepy eyes, could be called a laugh.

Next time Captain Keith rode to Avonmouth he met the riding party on the road, Bessie upon Rachel’s mare, and it appeared that Lady Temple had considered it so dreadful that Meg should not share her hospitality, that it had been quite impossible to send her away.  “So, Alick, your feelings must endure the dreadful spectacle.”

Meanwhile Rachel was hard at work with the subscribers to the “Christian Knowledge Society.”  Beginning with the A’s, and working down a page a day, she sent every member a statement of the wrongs of the lacemakers, and the plans of the industrial establishment, at a vast expense of stamps; but then, as she calculated, one pound thus gained paid for two hundred and forty fruitless letters.

“And pray,” said Alick, who had ridden on to call at the Homestead, “how do you reconcile yourself to the temptation to the postmen?”

“They don’t see what my letters are about?”

“They must be dull postmen if they don’t remark on the shower of envelopes that pass through their hands—­ominous money-letters, all with the same address, and no detection remember.  You don’t know who will answer and who will not.”

“I never thought of that,” said Rachel; “but risks must be run when any great purpose is in hand.”

“The corruption of one postman versus the rescue of—­how many children make a postman?” asked Captain Keith, with his grave, considering look.