"Don't let his coming make any difference, mamma," said Rachel. "I will go and get tea."
"Wait a few minutes longer, my dear," said Mrs. Ray.
It was all very well for Rachel to beg that it might make "no difference." It did make a very great deal of difference.
"I think I'll go over and see Mrs. Sturt for a few minutes," said Rachel, getting up.
"Pray don't, my dear,—pray don't; I should never know what to say to him if he should come while you were away."
So Rachel again sat down.
She had just, for the second time, declared her intention of getting tea, having now resolved that no weakness on her mother's part should hinder her, when Mrs. Ray, from her seat near the window, saw the young man coming over the green. He was walking very slowly, swinging a big stick as he came, and had taken himself altogether away from the road, almost to the verge of Mrs. Sturt's farmyard. "There he is," said Mrs. Ray, with a little start. Rachel, who was struggling hard to retain her composure, could not resist her impulse to jump up and look out upon the green from behind her mother's shoulder. But she did this from some little distance inside the room, so that no one might possibly see her from the green. "Yes; there he is, certainly," and, having thus identified their visitor, she immediately sat down again. "He's talking to Farmer Sturt's ploughboy," said Mrs. Ray. "He's asking where we live," said Rachel. "He's never been here before."
Rowan, having completed his conversation with the ploughboy, which by the way seemed to Mrs. Ray to have been longer than was necessary for its alleged purpose, came boldly across the green, and without pausing for a moment made his way through the cottage gate. Mrs. Ray caught her breath, and could not keep herself quite steady in her chair. Rachel, feeling that something must be done, got up from her seat and went quickly out into the passage. She knew that the front door was open, and she was prepared to meet Rowan in the hall.
"I told you I should call," said he. "I hope you'll let me come in."
"Mamma will be very glad to see you," she said. Then she brought him up and introduced him. Mrs. Ray rose from her chair and curtseyed, muttering something as to its being a long way for him to walk out there to the cottage.