CHAPTER VI.
IN MRS. HARDY'S STORE-ROOM.
RACHEL was very young, no doubt, but she was growing rapidly. To all intents and purposes she was at least five years older when she came home from Adelonga than she was when she went there; and the process of development by no means ceased or slackened at that point.
The blossoming of her womanhood had come suddenly, like the blossoming of the almond trees, in one warm burst of spring; but the inner heart, that budded in secret, continued to swell and ripen, in spite of—perhaps because of—the absence of sunshine in her spiritual life.
The physical change in her was noticeable to everybody. Her constitution was much too sound to be easily injured by mental wear and tear; but her health was necessarily affected in a greater or less degree, temporarily, for the better or for the worse, by the more powerful of those mental emotions to which her body was peculiarly sensitive and responsive at all times.
So she lost some of her delicate pinky colour, and her large eyes grew heavy and dreamy, and she looked generally faded and altered, in the dulness of these empty days. She had no more enthusiasm for Toorak life and Melbourne dissipations. She went into no raptures over jewels and dresses, or any pretty things; she had none of the old zest for operas and balls.
She was quiet, and silent, and preoccupied, moving about the house with a strange new dignity of manner (resulting from the total absence of self-consciousness), a sort of weary tolerance, as if she had lived in it all her life, and was tired of it.
After watching her for a few days, secretly, and in much perplexed anxiety, Mrs. Reade made up her mind that something was seriously wrong, and that it was time for her to interfere to set it right. She went to her mother in the first place for information.