“Oh, then, pray let us go on,” said Rachel, looking alarmed.

“To-morrow afternoon then, for I find there’s another waterfall.”

“Very well,” said Rachel, resignedly.

“Or shall we cut the waterfall, and get on to Llan—­ something?”

“If you don’t think we ought to see it.”

“Ought?” he said, smiling.  “What is the ought in the case?  Why are we going through all this?  Is it a duty to society or to ourselves?”

“A little of both, I suppose,” said Rachel.

“And, Rachel, from the bottom of your heart, is it not a trying duty?”

“I want to like what you are showing me,” said Rachel.

“And you are more worried than delighted, eh?”

“I—­I don’t know!  I see it is grand and beautiful!  I did love my own moors, and the Spinsters’ Needles, but—­ Don’t think me very ungrateful, but I can’t enter into all this!  All I really do care for is your kindness, and helping me about,” and she was really crying like a child unable to learn a lesson.

“Well,” he said, with his own languor of acquiescence, “we are perfectly agreed.  Waterfalls are an uncommon bore, if one is not in a concatenation accordingly.”

Rachel was beguiled into a smile.

“Come,” he said, “let us be strong minded!  If life should ever become painful to us because of our neglect of the waterfalls, we will set out and fulfil our tale of them.  Meantime, let me take you where you shall be really quiet, home to Bishopsworthy.”

“But your uncle does not expect you so soon.”

“My uncle is always ready for me, and a week or two of real rest there would make you ready for the further journey.”

Rachel made no opposition.  She was glad to have her mind relieved from the waterfalls, but she had rather have been quite alone with her husband.  She knew that Lord and Lady Keith had taken a house at Littleworthy, while Gowanbrae was under repair, and she dreaded the return to the bewildering world, before even the first month was over; but Alick made the proposal so eagerly that she could not help assenting with all the cordiality she could muster, thinking that it must be a wretched, disappointing wedding tour for him, and she would at least not prevent his being happy with his uncle; as happy as he could be with a person tied to him, of whom all his kindred must disapprove, and especially that paragon of an uncle, whom she heard of like an intensification of all that class of clergy who had of late been most alien to her.

Alick did not press for her real wishes, but wrote his letter, and followed it as fast as she could bear to travel.  So when the train, a succession of ovens for living bodies disguised in dust, drew up at the Littleworthy Station, there was a ready response to the smart footman’s inquiry, “Captain and Mrs. Keith?” This personage by no means accorded with Rachel’s preconceived notions of