The afternoons were spent in Lady Temple’s service.  Instead of the orthodox dowager britchska and pair, ruled over by a tyrannical coachman, he had provided her with a herd of little animals for harness or saddle, and a young groom, for whom Coombe was answerable.  Mrs. Curtis groaned and feared the establishment would look flighty; but for the first time Rachel became the colonel’s ally.  “The worst despotism practised in England,” she said, “is that of coachmen, and it is well that Fanny should be spared!  The coachman who lived here when mamma was married, answered her request to go a little faster, ‘I shall drive my horses as I plazes,’ and I really think the present one is rather worse in deed, though not in word.”

Moreover, Rachel smoothed down a little of Mrs. Curtis’s uneasiness at Fanny’s change of costume at the end of her first year of widowhood, on the ground that Colonel Keith advised her to ride with her sons, and that this was incompatible with weeds.  “And dear Sir Stephen did so dislike the sight of them,” she added, in her simple, innocent way, as if she were still dressing to please him.

“On the whole, mother,” said Rachel, “unless there is more heart-break than Fanny professes, there’s more coquetry in a pretty young thing wearing a cap that says, ‘come pity me,’ than in going about like other people.”

“I only wish she could help looking like a girl of seventeen,” sighed Mrs. Curtis.  “If that colonel were but married, or the other young man!  I’m sure she will fall into some scrape; she does not know how, out of sheer innocence.”

“Well, mother, you know I always mean to ride with her, and that will be a protection.”

“But, my dear, I am not sure about your riding with these gay officers; you never used to do such things.”

“At my age, mother, and to take care of Fanny.”

And Mrs. Curtis, in her uncertainty whether to sanction the proceedings and qualify them, or to make a protest—­dreadful to herself, and more dreadful to Fanny,—­yielded the point when she found herself not backed up by her energetic daughter, and the cavalcade almost daily set forth from Myrtlewood, and was watched with eyes of the greatest vexation, if not by kind Mrs. Curtis, by poor Mr. Touchett, to whom Lady Temple’s change of dress had been a grievous shock.  He thought her so lovely, so interesting, at first; and now, though it was sacrilege to believe it of so gentle and pensive a face, was not this a return to the world?  What had she to do with these officers?  How could her aunt permit it?  No doubt it was all the work of his great foe, Miss Rachel.