After this, Rachel was not surprised that poor, ignorant, and always deplorable Mrs. Morris did not seem in raptures with the state of her child, but more inclined to lament not having seen more of her, and not having her at home.  That was quite in accordance with peasant shortsightedness and ingratitude, but it was much more disappointing that Mr. Mitchell said little or nothing of approbation; asked her a few questions about her previous knowledge of Mr. Mauleverer and Mrs. Rawlins, and when she began to talk of arranging for some one or two of his London orphans, thanked her rather shortly, but said there was no way of managing it.  It was evident that he was quite as prejudiced as others of his clerical brethren, and the more Rachel read of current literature, the more she became convinced of their bondage to views into which they durst not examine, for fear honesty should compel them to assert their conclusions.

She had hoped better things from the stranger, but she began to be persuaded that all her former concessions to the principles infused in her early days were vain entanglements, and that it was merely weakness and unwillingness to pain her mother that prevented her from breaking through them.

She could not talk this out with anybody, except now and then an utterance to the consenting Mr. Mauleverer, but in general she would have been shocked to put these surging thoughts into words, and Bessie was her only intimate who would avow that there could be anything to be found fault with in a clergyman.  When alone together, Bessie would sometimes regretfully, sometimes in a tone of amusement, go over bits of narrow-minded folly that had struck her in the clergy, and more especially in her uncle’s curate, Mr. Lifford, whose dryness was, she owned, very repulsive to her.

“He is a good creature,” she said, “and most necessary to my uncle, but how he and I are to get through life together, I cannot tell.  It must soon be tried, though!  After my visit at Bath will come my home at Bishopsworthy!” And then she confided to Rachel all the parish ways, and took counsel on the means of usefulness that would not clash with the curate and pain her uncle.  She even talked of a possible orphan for the F. U. E. E., only that unlucky prejudice against Mr. Mauleverer was sure to stand in the way.

So acceptable had Bessie Keith made herself everywhere, that all Avonmouth was grieved at her engagement to spend the winter at Bath with her married cousin, to whom she was imperatively necessary in the getting up of a musical party.

“And I must go some time or other,” she said to Colonel Keith, “so it had better be when you are all here to make Myrtlewood cheerful, and I can be of most use to poor Jane!  I do think dear Lady Temple is much more full of life and brightness now!”

Everybody seemed to consider Bessie’s departure as their own personal loss:  the boys were in despair for their playfellow, Ermine would miss those sunny visits; Colonel Keith many a pleasant discussion, replete with delicate compliments to Ermine, veiled by tact; and Lord Keith the pretty young clanswoman who had kept up a graceful little coquetry with him, and even to the last evening, went on walking on the esplanade with him in the sunset, so as to set his brother free to avoid the evening chill.