IN MRS. HARDY'S STORE-ROOM.

R RACHEL was very young, no doubt, but she was growing rapidly. To all intents and purposes she was at least five years older when she came home from Adelonga than she was when she went there; and the process of development by no means ceased or slackened at that point.

The blossoming of her womanhood had come suddenly, like the blossoming of the almond trees, in one warm burst of spring; but the inner heart, that budded in secret, continued to swell and ripen, in spite of—perhaps because of—the absence of sunshine in her spiritual life.

The physical change in her was noticeable to everybody. Her constitution was much too sound to be easily injured by mental wear and tear; but her health was necessarily affected in a greater or less degree, temporarily, for the better or for the worse, by the more powerful of those mental emotions to which her body was peculiarly sensitive and responsive at all times.

So she lost some of her delicate pinky colour, and her large eyes grew heavy and dreamy, and she looked generally faded and altered, in the dulness of these empty days. She had no more enthusiasm for Toorak life and Melbourne dissipations. She went into no raptures over jewels and dresses, or any pretty things; she had none of the old zest for operas and balls.

She was quiet, and silent, and preoccupied, moving about the house with a strange new dignity of manner (resulting from the total absence of self-consciousness), a sort of weary tolerance, as if she had lived in it all her life, and was tired of it.

After watching her for a few days, secretly, and in much perplexed anxiety, Mrs. Reade made up her mind that something was seriously wrong, and that it was time for her to interfere to set it right. She went to her mother in the first place for information.

It was eleven o'clock in the morning, and Mrs. Hardy was in her store-room, counting out the day's allowance of eggs to an aggrieved and majestic cook.

The little woman stood by silently, watching the transaction with a smile in her brilliant eyes, thinking to herself what a great mistake it was, if poor mamma could but see it, to insist on an inflexible morality and economy in these petty matters; and when it was completed, after a little acrimonious discussion, she quietly shut the door, and addressed herself to her own business in her customary straightforward way.

"I want to know what is the matter with Rachel," she began, spreading her handkerchief on a keg of vinegar, and sitting down on it deliberately.

Mrs. Hardy mechanically sought repose in the one chair of the apartment, which stood in front of the little table where she was in the habit of making out her accounts.

"I'm sure that is more than I can tell you, my dear. What an insolent woman that is!—if she thinks I am going to let her have the run of my stores, as Mrs. Robinson did, she is very much mistaken."

"Something is wrong with Rachel," proceeded Mrs. Reade calmly; "and I want to find out what it is."

Mrs. Hardy made an effort to smooth her ruffled feathers down.

"I think the child must be fretting for Lucilla and the baby, Beatrice. She and Lucilla were bosom friends, and she just went wild about the baby—it was quite ridiculous to see her with it. And when she left them she cried as if she were completely heartbroken; and she has never been like herself since. I can't think what else ails her—unless she is out of sorts, and wants some medicine. I did give her some chamomilla yesterday, but it does not seem to have done her any good."

"No," said Mrs. Reade, with a sudden smile, "I don't think it is a case for chamomilla. She is not ill; she is unhappy—anyone can see that. You can see it, can't you?"

"I'm sure no girl has less cause to be unhappy," protested Mrs. Hardy evasively, in a fretful and anxious tone. "It is very ungrateful of her if she is."

"But what can have caused it? She was all right when she went to Adelonga. Something must have happened while she was there. She is not merely fretting after Lucilla and the baby—oh, no, it is a deeper matter than that. I am afraid—I really am seriously afraid, by the look of things—that it has something to do with Mr. Kingston." Her mother, though silent, was so obtrusively conscious and uneasy that she felt assured, the moment that she looked at her, of the correctness of her surmise. "Oh, do tell me what has happened!" she continued, eagerly. "Something has, I know. It is what I have been dreading all along—with these tiresome delays! They ought to have been married out of hand, and then there would have been no trouble."

"If there is anything wrong between them," Mrs. Hardy reluctantly admitted, "it is—I must say that for Rachel, though she is very trying with her silly childishness—it is Mr. Kingston's doings."

"Of course," assented Mrs. Reade, promptly.

"It was on the night of the ball. He rather neglected Rachel—the first time I ever knew him to do it—and he flirted in that foolish way of his—with Minnie Hale. You know Minnie Hale?—a great, fat, giggling creature—quite a common, vulgar sort of girl—not in the least his sort, one would have imagined. I don't wonder that Rachel was offended; I was extremely vexed with him myself, for he did it so openly—everybody noticed it. It was so bad, really, that the man that horrid girl was engaged to, Mr. Lessel, broke off with her on account of it. That will show you. She was a great deal worse than he was, of course. But he went great lengths. Perhaps he had been taking too much wine," she sighed, plaintively.

"No," said Mrs. Reade. "He has plenty of faults, but that is not one of them."

"Rachel was deeply hurt and shocked," Mrs. Hardy proceeded. "Naturally, for it was not a thing she had been used to, poor child. She took it very much to heart—so much that she wanted, like Mr. Lessel, to break off her engagement there and then." Here Mrs. Hardy went into details of poor Rachel's unsuccessful struggle for deliverance. "But of course I reasoned with the foolish child," she added conclusively; "I talked her out of that."

Mrs. Reade sat very still, tracing patterns on the floor with the point of her parasol.

"And did they have a quarrel?" she asked, vaguely. She was evidently thinking of something else.

"No. There was a coolness, of course, but—oh, no, I am sure they did not quarrel. He has seemed anxious to make up for it, and she has not shown any temper or resentment. But things have been uncomfortable if you can understand—very unsatisfactory and uncomfortable—ever since. I think she was disappointed in him, and cannot get over it. I have been hoping that it was all right, and that she was only unsettled and dispirited about leaving Adelonga. But now you mention it—yes, now I think of it—I'm afraid she is brooding over that other trouble still. Foolish child! she lives in a world of romantic ideals, I suppose."

"Why did Mr. Kingston flirt with Minnie Hale?" asked Mrs. Reade, looking up at her mother impressively.

"Oh, my dear, you know him as well as I do."

"You think he was worn out with being good?"

"He has been good, Beatrice—very good—ever since his engagement."

"Yes, he has. But if he had had a mind to misbehave, I don't think his duty to Rachel would have stopped him. The fact is, since his engagement he has never wanted anyone but her. I have watched him closely, and wonderful as it seems, he has never shown the slightest disposition to flirt beyond the stage of pretty speeches—not even when she was away—not even with Sarah Brownlow."

"It is a great pity," sighed Mrs. Hardy. "I wish they were safely married."

"And at the worst of times," the younger lady proceeded thoughtfully, regardless of the interjection, "he was fastidious in his choice—he liked someone who was either pretty or clever, or decidedly attractive in some way. I never knew him take any notice of a girl of that sort before."

"There is no accounting for men's tastes, my dear."

"Oh, yes," Mrs. Reade replied promptly; "I know that Minnie Hale is not his taste. I know he did not go on with her as you say he did, merely for the pleasure of it to himself. I think it must have been to spite Rachel."

"Beatrice!"

"Yes, mother—that is what I think. It is the only reasonable motive he could have had."

"But why on earth should he wish to spite Rachel?"

"That is what I want you to tell me. You were in the house with them—try and think of all that happened just before the ball. I'm certain something was wrong between them, to begin with. Perhaps you did not notice it at the time, but you might remember little circumstances—" Mrs. Reade broke off, and watched her mother's disturbed face with bright attentiveness. "Rachel did not flirt with anybody, did she?"

"Now, my dear, you know the child is incapable of such a thing."

"Oh, I don't mean deliberately, of course. But she might do it accidentally, with those sentimental eyes of hers. And she is so charmingly pretty!"

"No, she certainly did not flirt," said Mrs. Hardy; "she has never given him any uneasiness on that score, pretty as she is, and never will, I am quite sure. But there was a man——"

"Ah!" sighed Mrs. Reade, laying her parasol across her knees, and folding her hands resignedly.

"Why do you say 'ah,' Beatrice, before you hear what I am going to tell you? There was a man there whom Mr. Kingston disliked very much. He gave himself airs, and they somehow came into collision, and Mr. Kingston was in rather a bad temper. That was all that went wrong before the ball, and Rachel had nothing to do with that."

"Do you think so? I am certain she had," the young lady replied deliberately.

"Well, if you think you know better than I do, who was there to see——"

"Go on, dear mamma. Tell me all about him. Who was he? What was he like?"

Mrs. Hardy, pocketing her dignity, proceeded to describe Mr. Dalrymple, with great amplitude of detail, as he had appeared from her point of view.

The result was a kind of superior Newgate villian, of good birth and distinguished presence, whom Mrs. Reade regarded with a sinking heart.

"Oh, dear me!" she sighed, blankly, "what a pity! What a grevious pity!"

"I can't see why you should look at it in this way, Beatrice. I tell you she had little or nothing to say to him, and she only danced with him once the whole evening. I took care to point out to her the kind of man he was, and to warn her against him."

"You ought not to have done that."

"My dear, you will allow me to be the best judge of what I ought to do. She was very good and obedient, and she acted in every way as I wished her."

"But she liked him, didn't she?" asked Mrs. Reade.

"Yes," Mrs. Hardy admitted, with evident reluctance, "I am afraid she did like him."

"I am sure she did," said Mrs. Reade, decisively. "And there is more than liking in the matter, unless I am much mistaken. I have never been in love myself," she remarked frankly, "but I fancy I know the symptoms when I see them. I feared from the first that it was something of that sort that was the matter with her. At any rate—" putting up her hand to stay the imminent protest on her mother's lips—"at any rate, if he has not made her love him, he has made her discontented with Mr. Kingston."

"Well, Beatrice," the elder woman exclaimed, with an impatient sigh, rising from her chair, "if such a thing should be—if such a misfortune should have happened after all my care—we must only do the best we can to mend it. Thank goodness he's gone. He is not at all likely to give her another thought. If he does—" Mrs. Hardy shut her mouth significantly, and her Roman nostrils dilated.

"You can't help his thinking what he likes," said Mrs. Reade, with a gleam of mockery in her bright eyes.

"I can help his doing anything further to disturb her. I can see that he never meets or speaks to her again."

Mrs. Reade continued to smile, looking at her majestic mother with her bird-like head on one side.

"I hope so," she said. "I'm sure I hope so, if you can do it without her knowledge. But if you should have to act, whatever you do, don't make martyrs of them."

"Don't talk nonsense," retorted Mrs. Hardy.