"Yes," said the Colonel; "I was recollecting the gracious vision she
used to be at all our chief's parties."
"Vision, you call her, who lived in the house with her? What do you
think she was to us--poor wretches--coming up from barracks where Mrs.
O'Shaughnessy was our cynosure? There was not one of us to whom she
was not Queen of the East, and more, with that innocent, soft, helpless
dignity of hers!"
"And Sir Stephen for the first of her vassals," said the Colonel.
"What a change it has been!" said Alick.
"Yes; but a change that has shown her to have been unspoilable. We were
just agreeing on the ball-room perfections of her and your sister in
their several lines."
"Very different lines," said Alick, smiling.
"I can't judge of Fanny's," said Rachel, "but your sister is almost
enough to make one believe there can be some soul in young lady life."
"I did not bring Bessie here to convert you," was the somewhat
perplexing answer.
"Nor has she," said Rachel, "except so far as I see that she can follow
ordinary girls' pursuits without being frivolous in them." Alick bowed
at the compliment.
"And she has been a sunbeam," added Rachel, "we shall all feel graver
and cloudier without her."
"Yes," said Colonel Keith, "and I am glad Mr. Clare has such a sunbeam
for his parsonage. What a blessing she will be there!" he added, as he
watched Bessie's graceful way of explaining to his brother some little
matter in behalf of the shy mother of a shy girl. Thinking he might be
wanted, Colonel Keith went forward to assist, and Rachel continued, "I
do envy that power of saying the right thing to everybody!"
"Don't--it is the greatest snare," was his answer, much amazing her, for
she had her mind full of the two direct personal blunders she had made
towards him.
"It prevents many difficulties and embarrassments."
"Very desirable things."
"Yes; for those that like to laugh, but not for those that are laughed
at," said Rachel.
"More so; the worst of all misfortunes is to wriggle too smoothly
through life."
This was to Rachel the most remarkable part of the evening; as to the
rest, it was like all other balls, a weariness: Grace enjoying herself
and her universal popularity, always either talking or dancing, and her
mother comfortable and dutiful among other mothers; the brilliant figure
and ready grace of Bessie Keith being the one vision that perpetually
flitted in her dreams, and the one ever-recurring recollection that
Captain Keith, the veritable hero of the shell, had been lectured by
her on his own deed! In effect Rachel had never felt so beaten down and
ashamed of herself; so doubtful of her own most positive convictions,
and yet not utterly dissatisfied, and the worst of it was that Emily
Grey was after all carried off without dancing with the hero; and Rachel
felt as if her own opinionativeness had defrauded the poor girl.