“Except the dear, darling, delightful mammy!” And the larger proportion of boys precipitated themselves headlong upon her, so that any one but a mother would have been buffeted out of breath in their struggles for embracing ground; and even Lady Temple found it a relief when Hubert, having been squeezed out, bethought himself of extending the honourable exception to Miss Williams, and thus effected a diversion.  What would have been the young gentlemen’s reception of his lordship’s previous proposal!

Yet in the fulness of her gladness the inconsistent widow, who had thought Lord Keith so much too old for herself, gave her younger friend heartfelt congratulations upon the blessing of being under fatherly direction and guidance.  She was entrusted with the announcement to Rachel, who received it with a simple “Indeed!” and left her cousin unmolested in her satisfaction, having long relegated Fanny to the class of women who think having a friend about to be married the next best thing to being married themselves, no matter to whom.

“Aspirations in women are mere delusions,” was her compensating sigh to Grace.  “There is no truer saying, than that a woman will receive every man.”

“I have always been glad that is aprocryphal,” said Grace, “and Eastern women have no choice.”

“Nor are Western women better than Eastern,” said Rachel.  “It is all circumstances.  No mental power or acuteness has in any instance that I have yet seen, been able to balance the propensity to bondage.  The utmost flight is, that the attachment should not be unworthy.”

“I own that I am very much surprised,” said Grace.

“I am not at all,” said Rachel.  “I have given up hoping better things.  I was beginning to have a high opinion of Bessie Keith’s capabilities, but womanhood was at the root all the time; and, as her brother says, she has had great disadvantages, and I can make excuses for her.  She had not her heart filled with one definite scheme of work and usefulness, such as deters the trifling and designing.”

“Like the F. U. E. E.?”

“Yes, the more I see of the fate of other women, the more thankful I am that my vocation has taken a formed and developed shape.”

And thus Rachel could afford to speak without severity of the match, though she abstained from congratulation.  She did not see Captain Keith for the next few days, but at last the two sisters met him at the Cathedral door as they were getting into the carriage after a day’s shopping at Avoncester; and Grace offered her congratulations, in accordance with her mother’s old fashioned code.

“Thank you,” he said; then turning to Rachel, “Did she write to you?”

“No.”

“I thought not.”