"Indeed," said Mr. Touchett, well nigh disarmed by the look, "I am quite
sensible of the kindness of all you do, I only ventured to wish there
had been a little more delay, that we were more certain about this
person."
"When Colonel Keith comes back he will find out all about him, I
am sure," said Fanny, and Mr. Touchett, to whom seemed to have been
transferred Rachel's dislike to the constant quoting of Colonel Keith,
said no more.
The immediate neighbourhood did not very readily respond to the appeal
to it in behalf of the lace-makers. People who did not look into the
circumstances of their neighbours thought lace furnished a good trade,
and by no means wished to enhance its price; people who did care for the
poor had charities of their own, nor was Rachel Curtis popular enough
to obtain support for her own sake; a few five-pound notes, and a scanty
supply of guineas and half-guineas from people who were ready at any
cost to buy off her vehement eyes and voice was all she could obtain,
and with a subscription of twenty pounds each from her mother, Lady
Temple, and Grace, and all that she could scrape together of her own,
hardly seemed sufficient to meet the first expenses, and how would the
future be provided for? She calculated how much she could spare out of
her yearly income, and actually, to the great horror of her mother and
the coachman, sold her horse.
Bessie Keith was the purchaser. It was an expense that she could quite
afford, for she and her brother had been left very well off by their
father--a prudent man, who, having been a widower during his Indian
service, had been able to live inexpensively, besides having had a large
amount of prize money. She had always had her own horse at Littleworthy,
and now when Rachel was one day lamenting to her the difficulty of
raising money for the Industrial Asylum, and declaring that she would
part with her horse if she was sure of its falling into good hands,
Bessie volunteered to buy it, it was exactly what would suit her, and
she should delight in it as a reminder of dear Avonmouth. It was a pang,
Rachel loved the pretty spirited creature, and thought of her rides with
the Colonel; but how weigh the pleasure of riding against the welfare
of one of those hard-worked, half-stifled little girls, and besides, it
might be best to have done with Colonel Keith now that her mission had
come to find her. So the coachman set a purposely unreasonable value
upon poor Meg, and Rachel reduced the sum to what had been given for it
three years before; but Bessie begged her brother to look at the animal
and give his opinion.