"Did he say anything more than that, Rachel?"
"He calls me Rachel, and speaks—I can't tell you how he speaks. If you think it wrong, mamma, I won't ever see him again."
Mrs. Ray didn't know whether she ought to think it wrong or not. She was inclined to wish that it was right and to believe that it was wrong. A few minutes ago Rachel was unable to open her mouth, and was anxious to escape to bed; but, now that the ice was broken between her and her mother, they sat up for more than an hour talking about Luke Rowan.
"I wonder whether he will really come?" Rachel said to herself, as she laid her head upon her pillow—"and why does he want to come?"
CHAPTER IX.
MR. PRONG AT HOME.
Mrs. Tappitt's ball was celebrated on a Tuesday, and on the preceding Monday Mrs. Prime moved herself off, bag and baggage, to Miss Pucker's lodgings. Miss Pucker had been elated with a dismal joy when the proposition was first made to her. "Oh, yes; it was very dreadful. She would do anything;—of course she would give up the front bedroom up-stairs to Mrs. Prime, and get a stretcher for herself in the little room behind, which looked out on the tiles of Griggs' sugar warehouse. She hadn't thought such a thing would have been possible; she really had not. A ball! Mrs. Prime couldn't help coming away;—of course not. And there would be plenty of room for all her boxes in the small room behind the shop. Mrs. Ray's daughter go to a ball!" And then some threatening words were said as to the destiny of wicked people, which shall not be repeated here.
That flitting had been a very dismal affair. An old man out of Baslehurst had come for Mrs. Prime's things with a donkey-cart, and the old man, assisted by the girl, had carried them out together. Rachel had remained secluded in her mother's room. The two sisters had met at the same table at breakfast, but had not spoken over their tea and bread and butter. As Rachel was taking the cloth away Mrs. Prime had asked her solemnly whether she still persisted in bringing perdition upon herself and her mother. "You have no right to ask me such a question," Rachel had answered, and taking herself up-stairs had secluded herself till the old man with the donkey, followed by Mrs. Prime, had taken himself away from Bragg's End. Mrs. Ray, as her eldest daughter was leaving her, stood at the door of her house with her handkerchief to her eyes. "It makes me very unhappy, Dorothea; so it does." "And it makes me very unhappy, too, mother. Perhaps my sorrow in the matter is deeper than yours. But I must do my duty." Then the two widows kissed each other with a cold unloving kiss, and Mrs. Prime had taken her departure from Bragg's End Cottage. "It will make a great difference in the housekeeping," Mrs. Ray said to Rachel, and then she went to work at her little accounts.
It was Dorcas-day at Miss Pucker's, and as the work of the meeting began soon after Mrs. Prime had unpacked her boxes in the front bedroom and had made her little domestic arrangements with her friend, that first day passed by without much tedium. Mrs. Prime was used to Miss Pucker, and was not therefore grievously troubled by the ways and habits of that lady, much as they were unlike those to which she had been accustomed at Bragg's End; but on the next morning, as she was sitting with her companion after breakfast, an idea did come into her head that Miss Pucker would not be a pleasant companion for life. She would talk incessantly of the wickednesses of the cottage, and ask repeated questions about Rachel and the young man. Mrs. Prime was undoubtedly very angry with her mother, and much shocked at her sister, but she did not relish the outspoken sympathy of her confidential friend. "He'll never marry her, you know. He don't think of such a thing," said Miss Pucker over and over again. Mrs. Prime did not find this pleasant when spoken of her sister. "And the young men I'm told goes on anyhow, as they pleases at them dances," said Miss Pucker, who in the warmth of her intimacy forgot some of those little restrictions in speech with which she had burdened herself when first striving to acquire the friendship of Mrs. Prime. Before dinner was over Mrs. Prime had made up her mind that she must soon move her staff again, and establish herself somewhere in solitude.