’Well, Dorcas, I don’t see why you should
not, though I don’t know why you say so.’
’You’re not like other people; you don’t
complain, and you’re not bitter, although you
have had great misfortunes, my poor Rachel.’
There be ladies, young and old, who, the moment they
are pitied, though never so cheerful before, will
forthwith dissolve in tears. But that was not
Rachel’s way; she only looked at her with a good-humoured
but grave curiosity for a few seconds, and then said,
with rather a kindly smile—
‘And now, Dorcas, I like you.’
Dorcas made no answer, but put her arm round Rachel’s
neck, and kissed her; Dorcas made two kisses of it,
and Rachel one, but it was cousinly and kindly; and
Rachel laughed a soft little laugh after it, looking
amused and very lovingly on her cousin; but she was
a bold lass, and not given in anywise to the melting
mood, and said gaily, with her open hand still caressingly
on Dorcas’s waist—
’I make a very good nun, Dorcas, as I told Stanley
the other day. I sometimes, indeed, receive a
male visitor, at the other side of the paling, which
is my grille; but to change my way of life is a dream
that does not trouble me. Happy the girl—and
I am one—who cannot like until she is first
beloved. Don’t you remember poor, pale Winnie,
the maid who used to take us on our walks all the
summer at Dawling; how she used to pluck the leaves
from the flowers, like Faust’s Marguerite, saying,
“He loves me a little—passionately,
not at all.” Now if I were loved passionately,
I might love a little; and if loved a little—it
should be not at all.’
They had the road all to themselves, and were going
at a walk up an ascent, so the reins lay loosely on
the ponies’ necks and Dorcas looked with an
untold meaning in her proud face, on her cousin, and
seemed on the point of speaking, but she changed her
mind.
’And so Dorcas, as swains are seldom passionately
in love with so small a pittance as mine, I think
I shall mature into a queer old maid, and take all
the little Wylders, masters and misses, with your leave,
for their walks, and help to make their pinafores.’
Whereupon Miss Dorcas put her ponies into a very quick
trot, and became absorbed in her driving.
IN WHICH VARIOUS PERSONS GIVE THEIR OPINIONS OF CAPTAIN
STANLEY LAKE.
‘Stanley is an odd creature,’ said Rachel,
so soon as another slight incline brought them to
a walk; ’I can’t conceive why he has come
down here, or what he can possibly want of that disagreeable
lawyer. They have got dogs and guns, and are
going, of course, to shoot; but he does not care for
shooting, and I don’t think Mr. Larkin’s
society can amuse him. Stanley is clever and
cunning, I think, but he is neither wise nor frank.
He never tells me his plans, though he must know—he
does know—I love him; yes, he’s
a strange mixture of suspicion and imprudence.
He’s wonderfully reserved. I am certain
he trusts no one on earth, and at the same time, except
in his confidences, he’s the rashest man living.
If he were like Lord Chelford, or even like our good
vicar—not in piety, for poor Stanley’s
training, like my own, was sadly neglected there—I
mean in a few manly points of character, I should
be quite happy, I think, in my solitary nook.’
