“I hope so.  It was an ineffable comfort to me to come here out of Littleworthy croquet, and I think cheering me did him good.  Rachel, you may do and say what you please,” he added, earnestly, “since you have taken to him.”

“I could not help it,” said Rachel, though a slight embarrassment came over her at the recollection of Bessie, and at the thought of the narrow views on which she expected to differ.  Then, as Alick continued to search among the music, she asked, “Will he like the piano to be used?”

“Of all things.  Bessie’s singing is his delight.  Look, could we get this up?”

“You don’t sing, Alick!  I mean, do you?”

“We need not betray our talents to worldlings base.”

Rachel found her accompaniment the least satisfactory part of the affair, and resolved on an hour’s practice every day in Mr. Clare’s absence, a wholesome purpose even as regarded her health and spirits.  She had just sat down to write letters, feeling for the first time as if they would not be a toil, when Mr. Clare looked in to ask Alick to refer to a verse in the Psalms, quoting it in Greek as well as English, and after the research had been carried to the Hebrew, he told Rachel that he was going to write his sermon, and repaired to the peacock path, where he paced along with Ranger and the cat, in faithful, unobtrusive attendance.

“What, you can read Hebrew, Alick?”

“So can you.”

“Enough to appreciate the disputed passages.  When did you study it?”

“I learnt enough, when I was laid up, to look out my uncle’s texts for him.”

She felt a little abashed by the tone, but a message called him away, and before his return Mr. Clare came back to ask for a reference to St. Augustine.  On her offer of her services, she was thanked, and directed with great precision to the right volume of the Library of the Fathers, but spying a real St. Augustine, she could not be satisfied without a flight at the original.  It was not, however, easy to find the place; she was forced to account for her delay by confessing her attempt, and then to profit by Mr. Clare’s directions, and, after all, her false quantities, though most tenderly and apologetically corrected, must have been dreadful to the scholarly ear, for she was obliged to get Alick to read the passage over to him before he arrived at the sense, and Rachel felt her flight of clever womanhood had fallen short.  It was quite new to her to be living with people who knew more of, and went deeper into, everything than she did, and her husband’s powers especially amazed her.