But Robert Channell had a keener sight; and he began to ask himself, uneasily, if he had been right in letting this engagement come to pass? In his heart of hearts he owned that he had been secretly anxious to secure the curate for his daughter. It was the desire of his life that Nelly should marry a good man, and Morgan Foster was the best man that had as yet come in her way. Perhaps he, too, had been running when he ought to have stood still. He began to think that this was the case.
But how could he undo what was done? In his perplexity he talked the matter over with his wife. And she admitted that the curate did not seem to be quite at ease in Nelly’s company. There was a shadow upon him. It might be a consciousness of failing health, or——
“Or of failing love,” said Mr. Channell, finishing her sentence. “If that is it, Rhoda, it is a miserable affair indeed! We ought to have made them wait before we sanctioned the engagement. But you know I wanted to keep her safe from those selfish, worldly men who have been seeking her.”
“We are always afraid to trust God with anything dear to us,” answered Mrs. Channell, sadly. “But if Morgan Foster has mistaken his own feelings, Robert, it will be hard to condemn him, and equally hard to forgive him.”
Summer came. And early in July all the gossips in Huntsdean were talking of the rich family who had taken Laurel House. Mr. Gold, they said, was a retired merchant from Warwickshire, who was as wealthy as a nabob. His household consisted of a wife and six children, a governess, and menservants and maidservants. And when Nelly heard that the governess was a Miss Hazleburn, the name awoke no recollections. She had quite forgotten the little poem in the Monthly Guest.
The Channells called on the new-comers, and were received by Miss Hazleburn. Illness kept Mrs. Gold in her own room for some weeks after her arrival in Huntsdean, and on Eve devolved the unwelcome task of seeing visitors. The one whom she most dreaded and most longed to see did not come. She saw him in church, and that was all. She had determined that her stay in Huntsdean should be as short as possible. Already she was answering advertisements, and doing her utmost to get away from the place. It was hard upon her, she thought, that among the earliest callers should be Nelly Channell.
Yet when she saw the girl she felt a thrill of secret satisfaction. This, then, was the woman before whom she was preferred; and Eve’s eyes told her that she could no more be compared with Nelly than a daisy can be compared with a rose! But the poor daisy, growing in life’s highway, unsheltered from the storms of the world, was loved better than the beautiful garden flower. She was human, and she could not help rejoicing in her unsuspected triumph.
Nelly took a girl’s sudden and unreasonable liking to the governess. She wanted Miss Hazleburn to be her friend; she talked of her to everybody, including Morgan Foster.
“Have you seen her, Morgan?” she asked.
“I have seen her in church,” he answered.