“No, not at all,” he replied; “it is likely to be a pleasant affair, and my uncle will be delighted to have us with him.  No,” he added, seeing that she still looked at him inquisitively, “it is the old story.  My sister!  Poor little thing!  I always feel as though I wore more unkind and unjust to her than any one else, and yet we are never together without my feeling as if she was deceiving herself and me; and yet it is all so fair and well reasoned that one is always left in the wrong.  I regretted this marriage extremely at first, and I am not the less disposed to regret it now.”

“Indeed!  Every one says how attentive she is to him, and how nicely they go on together.”

“Pshaw, Rachel! that is just the way.  A few words and pretty ways pass with her and all the world for attention, when she is wherever her fancy calls her, all for his good.  It is just the attention she showed my uncle.  And now it is her will and pleasure to queen it here among her old friends, and she will not open her eyes to see the poor old man’s precarious state.”

“Do you think him so very ill, Alick?”

“I was shocked when I saw him yesterday.  As to sciatica, that is all nonsense; the blow in his side has done some serious damage, and if it is not well looked-to, who knows what will be the end of it!  And then, a gay young widow with no control over her—­I hate to think of it.”

“Indeed,” said Rachel, “she is so warm and bright, and really earnest in her kindness, that she will be sure to see her own way right at home.  I don’t think we can guess how obstinate Lord Keith may be in refusing to take advice.”

“He cut me off pretty short,” said Alick.  “I am afraid he will see no one here; and, as Bessie says, the move to Scotland would not be easy just now.  As I said, she leaves one in the wrong, and I don’t like the future.  But it is of no use to talk of it; so let us come and see if my uncle wants to go anywhere.”

It was Alick’s fate never to meet with sympathy in his feeling of his sister’s double-mindedness.  Whether it were that he was mistaken, or that she really had the gift of sincerity for the moment in whatever she was saying, the most candid and transparent people in the world—­ his uncle and his wife—­never even succeeded in understanding his dissatisfaction with Bessie’s doings, but always received them at her own valuation.  Even while he had been looking forward, with hope deferred, to her residence with him as the greatest solace the world could yet afford him, Mr. Clare had always been convinced that her constant absence from his Rectory, except when his grand neighbours were at home, had been unavoidable, and had always credited the outward tokens of zealous devotion to his church and parish, and to all that was useful or good elsewhere.  In effect there was a charm about her which no one but her brother ever resisted, and even he held out by an exertion that made him often appear ungracious.