“Very stiff.  I want him to have advice, but he hates doctors.  What is the last Avonmouth news?  Is Ermine in good heart, and the boys well again?”

She was the same Bessie as ever—­full of exulting animation, joined to a caressing manner that her uncle evidently delighted in; and to Rachel she was most kind and sisterly, welcoming her so as amply to please and gratify Alick.  An arrangement was made that Rachel should be sent for early to spend the day at Timber End, and that Mr. Clare and Alick should walk over later.  Then the two pretty ponies came with her little low carriage to the yew-tree gate, were felt and admired by Mr. Clare, and approved by Alick, and she drove off gaily, leaving all pleased and amused, but still there was a sense that the perfect serenity had been ruffled.

“Rachel,” said Alick, as they wandered in the twilight garden, “I wonder if you would be greatly disappointed if our travels ended here.”

“I am only too glad of the quiet.”

“Because Lifford is in great need of thorough rest.  He has not been away for more than a year, and now he is getting quite knocked up.  All he does care to do, is to take lodgings near his wife’s asylum, poor man, and see her occasionally:  sad work, but it is rest, and winds him up again; and there is no one but myself to whom he likes to leave my uncle.  Strangers always do too little or too much; and there is a young man at Littleworthy for the long vacation who can help on a Sunday.”

“Oh, pray let us stay as long as we can!”

“Giving up the Cretins?”

“It is no sacrifice.  I am thankful not to be hunted about; and if anything could make me better pleased to be here, it would be feeling that I was not hindering you.”

“Then I will hunt him away for six weeks or two months at least.  It will be a great relief to my uncle’s mind.”

It was so great a relief that Mr. Clare could hardly bring himself to accept the sacrifice of the honeymoon, and though there could be little doubt which way the discussion would end, he had not yielded when the ponies bore off Rachel on Monday morning.

Timber End was certainly a delightful place.  Alick had railed it a cockney villa, but it was in good taste, and very fair and sweet with flowers and shade.  Bessie’s own rooms, where she made Rachel charmingly at home, were wonderful in choiceness and elegance, exciting Rachel’s surprise how it could be possible to be so sumptuously lodged in such a temporary abode, for the house was only hired for a few months, while Gowanbrae was under repair.  It was within such easy reach of London that Bessie had been able from thence to go through the more needful season gaieties; and she had thought it wise, both for herself and Lord Keith, not to enter on their full course.  It sounded very moderate and prudent, and Rachel felt vexed with herself and Alick for recollecting a certain hint of his, that Lady Keith felt herself