Rachel would not encourage him to talk of Lady Temple, so she turned to Ermine on the business that had brought her, collecting and adapting old clothes for emigrants.—­It was not exactly gentlemen’s pastime, and Ermine tried to put it aside and converse, but Rachel never permitted any petty consideration to interfere with a useful design, and as there was a press of time for the things, she felt herself justified in driving the intruder off the field and outstaying him.  She succeeded; he recollected the desire of the boys that he should take them to inspect the pony at the “Jolly Mariner,” and took leave with—­“I shall see you to-morrow.”

“You knew him all the time!” exclaimed Rachel, pausing in her unfolding of the Master Temples’ ship wardrobe.  “Why did you not say so?”

“We did not know his name.  He was always the ‘Major.’”

“Who, and what is he?” demanded Rachel, as she knelt before her victim, fixing those great prominent eyes, so like those of Red Riding Hood’s grandmother, that Ermine involuntarily gave a backward impulse to her wheeled chair, as she answered the readiest thing that occurred to her,—­“He is brother to Lord Keith of Gowan-brae.”

“Oh,” said Rachel, kneeling on meditatively, “that accounts for it.  So much the worse.  The staff is made up of idle honourables.”

“Quoth the ‘Times!’” replied Ermine; “but his appointment began on account of a wound, and went on because of his usefulness—­”

“Wounded!  I don’t like wounded heroes,” said Rachel; “people make such a fuss with them that they always get spoilt.”

“This was nine years ago, so you may forget it if you like,” said Ermine, diversion suppressing displeasure.

“And what is your opinion of him?” said Rachel, edging forward on her knees, so as to bring her inquisitorial eyes to bear more fully.

“I had not seen him for twelve years,” said Ermine, rather faintly.

“He must have had a formed character when you saw him last.  The twelve years before five-and-forty don’t alter the nature.”

“Five-and-forty!  Illness and climate have told, but I did not think it was so much.  He is only thirty-six—­”

“That is not what I care about,” said Rachel, “you are both of you so cautious that you tell me what amounts to nothing!  You should consider how important it is to me to know something about the person in whose power my cousin’s affairs are left.”

“Have you not sufficient guarantee in the very fact of her husband’s confidence?”

“I don’t know.  A simple-hearted old soldier always means a very foolish old man.”

“Witness the Newcomes,” said Ermine, who, besides her usual amusement in tracing Rachel’s dicta to their source, could only keep in her indignation by laughing.

“General observation,” said Rachel, not to be turned from her purpose.  “I am not foolishly suspicious, but it is not pleasant to see great influence and intimacy without some knowledge of the person exercising it.”