anything short of Rachel’s strong will, for
the children were always with her, and she went to
bed, or at any rate to her own room, when they did,
and she was so perfectly able to play and laugh with
them that her cousins scarcely thought her sufficiently
depressed, and comparing her with what their own mother
had been after ten months’ widowhood, agreed
that after all “she had been very young, and
Sir Stephen very old, and perhaps too much must not
be expected of her.”
“The grand passion of her life is yet to come,”
said Rachel.
“I hope not,” said Grace.
“You may be certain of that,” said Rachel.
“Feminine women always have it one time or
other in their lives; only superior ones are exempt.
But I hope I may have influence enough to carry her
past it, and prevent her taking any step that might
be injurious to the children.”
RACHEL’S DISCIPLINE
“Thought is free, as sages tells
us—
Free to rove, and free to soar;
But affection lives in bondage,
That enthrals her more and more.”
Jean INGELOW.
An old friend lived in the neighbourhood who remembered
Fanny’s father, and was very anxious to see
her again, though not able to leave the house.
So the first day that it was fine enough for Mrs.
Curtis to venture out, she undertook to convey Fanny
to call upon her, and was off with a wonderfully moderate
allowance of children, only the two youngest boys
outside with their maid. This drive brought
more to light about Fanny’s past way of life
and feelings than had ever yet appeared. Rachel
had never elicited nearly so much as seemed to have
come forth spontaneously to the aunt, who had never
in old times been Fanny’s confidante.
Fanny’s life had been almost a prolonged childhood.
From the moment of her marriage with the kind old
General, he and her mother had conspired to make much
of her; all the more that she was almost constantly
disabled by her state of health, and was kept additionally
languid and helpless by the effects of climate.
Her mother had managed her household, and she had
absolutely had no care, no duty at all but to be affectionate
and grateful, and to be pretty and gracious at the
dinner parties. Even in her mother’s short
and sudden illness, the one thought of both the patient
and the General had been to spare Fanny, and she had
been scarcely made aware of the danger, and not allowed
to witness the suffering. The chivalrous old
man who had taken on himself the charge of her, still
regarded the young mother of his children as almost
as much of a baby herself, and devoted himself all
the more to sparing her trouble, and preventing her
from feeling more thrown upon her by her mother’s
death. The notion of training her to act alone
never even occurred to him, and when he was thrown
from his horse, and carried into a wayside-hut to
die, his first orders were that no hurried message
