"You seem to have very little to say about it; but I suppose you're tired."
"I am tired, but it isn't that. It seems that there is so much to think about. I'll tell you everything to-morrow, when I get quiet again. Not that there is much to tell."
"Then I'll wish you good-night, dear."
"Good-night, mamma. Mrs. Cornbury was so kind,—you can have no idea how good-natured she is."
"She always was a good creature."
"If I'd been her sister she couldn't have done more for me. I feel as though I were really quite fond of her. But she isn't a bit like what I expected. She chooses to have her own way; but then she is so good-humoured! And when I got into any little trouble she—"
"Well, what else did she do; and what trouble had you?"
"I can't quite describe what I mean. She seemed to make so much of me;—just as she might have done if I'd been some grand young lady down from London, or any, any;—you know what I mean."
Mrs. Ray sat with her candle in her hand, receiving great comfort from the knowledge that her daughter had been "respectit." She knew well what Rachel meant, and reflected, with perhaps a pardonable pride, that she herself had "come of decent people." The Tappitts were higher than her in the world, and so were the Griggses. But she knew that her forbears had been gentlefolk, when there were, so to speak, no Griggses and no Tappitts in existence. It was pleasant to her to think that her daughter had been treated as a lady.
"And she did do me such a kindness. That horrid Mr. Griggs was going to dance with me, and she wouldn't let him."