“Blindness!  Indeed, I had not heard of that.”

Even Rachel listened with interest as the young officer explained that his uncle, whom both he and Miss Williams talked of as a man of note, of whom every one must have heard, had for the last four years been totally blind, but continued to be an active parish priest, visiting regularly, preaching, and taking a share in the service, which he knew by heart.  He had, of course, a curate, who lived with him, and took very good care of him.

“No one else?” said Rachel.  “I thought your sister lived at Bishopsworthy.”

“No, my sister lives, or has lived, at Little Worthy, the next parish, and as unlike it as possible.  It has a railroad in it, and the cockneys have come down on it and ‘villafied’ it.  My aunt, Mrs. Lacy Clare, has lived there ever since my sister has been with her; but now her last daughter is to be married, she wishes to give up housekeeping.”

“And your sister is coming to Lady Temple,” said Rachel, in her peculiar affirmative way of asking questions.  “She will find it very dull here.”

“With all the advantages of Avoncester at hand?” inquired Alick, with a certain gleam under his flaxen eyelashes that convinced Ermine that he said it in mischief.  But Rachel drew herself up gravely, and answered—­

“In Lady Temple’s situation any such thing would be most inconsistent with good feeling.”

“Such as the cathedral?” calmly, not to say sleepily, inquired Alick, to the excessive diversion of Ermine, who saw that Rachel had never been laughed at in her life, and was utterly at a loss what to make of it.

“If you meant the cathedral,” she said, a little uncertainly, recollecting the tone in which Mr. Clare had just been spoken of, and thinking that perhaps Miss Keith might be a curatolatress, “I am afraid it is not of much benefit to people living at this distance, and there is not much to be said for the imitation here.”

“You will see what my sister says to it.  She only wants training to be the main strength of the Bishopsworthy choir, and perhaps she may find it here.”

Rachel was evidently undecided whether chants or marches were Miss Keith’s passion, and, perhaps, which propensity would render the young lady the most distasteful to herself.  Ermine thought it merciful to divert the attack by mentioning Mr. Clare’s love of music, and hoping his curate could gratify it.  “No,” Mr. Keith said, “it was very unlucky that Mr. Lifford did not know one note from another; so that his vicar could not delude himself into hoping that his playing on his violin was anything but a nuisance to his companion, and in spite of all the curate’s persuasions, he only indulged himself therewith on rare occasions.”  But as Ermine showed surprise at the retention of a companion devoid of this sixth sense, so valuable to the blind, he added—­“No one would suit him so well.  Mr. Lifford has been with him ever since his sight began to fail, and understands all his ways.”