She could see for herself that a great deal had been done. The trenches were filled up; great square blocks of stone ridged the outlines of the ground-floor rooms--little bits of rooms they looked, and not at all like the stately and spacious apartments of the architect's design; but it seemed to her that what had been done could not be a tenth or twentieth part of all that there was to do. "I suppose," she said, "it takes a long time to build the walls and make such a quantity of windows?" "Oh, dear, no," responded Mr. Moore cheerfully. "All the worst of the work is over now, as far as the shell is concerned; the walls will run up in no time. It is a big house, but there are plenty of men on it, and all materials ready. It is after the shell is done that the real tedious work commences." "You mean after the roof is on?" "Yes. The interior decorations are the chief thing about this house. The outside is not much." "When do you expect the shell will be finished?" asked Rachel, in fear and trembling. "Some time in the course of the summer--within the next two or three months probably." "And the roof on?" "Oh, yes; of course the roof on," he replied. There was a pause; and then she said in a very small, thin voice: "Thank you, Mr. Moore. I think I must go back now." He escorted her back to the garden gate, lifted his hat, and bade her good evening; and it struck him suddenly--with far more force than it had struck Beatrice--that she was looking extremely unwell, and not at all like the bright and blooming creature that she was when she went away. CHAPTER VI. IN MRS. HARDY'S STORE-ROOM. 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.