After the sudden suspicion that he had been unconsciously giving way to selfishness in not encouraging Rachel to work, he made up his mind that he must talk the matter over. "My dear boy," said Mrs. Greville, "Rachel is no more fit to work in a parish than a child of five years old, and particularly in this parish. She has been buried in the country all her life and is absolutely incapable of doing any good till she has had anyhow a little experience." "But I don't see how she can gain experience without working," said Luke. "Well if you are so bent on it let her come with me to the mothers' meeting and watch how things are done. In fact she might undertake the reading, that is to say if she reads well." "I have never heard her read, but no doubt she does. She does everything well," he added laughing. "In fact she is perfect in your eyes," answered his mother amused at her son's blindness. "Well, let her come to the mothers' meeting to-morrow. She can't anyhow do any harm." "Harm! No indeed. The mere look of her must do good." "She is certainly very pretty," was the answer. And Luke left her in good spirits, quite unconscious that his mother did not agree with his views of his wife, and that when she made the statement that anyhow Rachel could do no harm she did not intend it for a joke. He was however disappointed that Rachel did not seem to take kindly to the idea of going to the mothers' meeting. To his surprise he had actually seen her face fall at the suggestion. "Don't go dear if you would rather not," he said quickly, "but I fancied you might be glad of the experience. You are always telling me you want to work in the parish." "I want to help you," she said, "but I don't see that sitting and watching your mother would be exactly a help either to you or to me." Then suddenly remembering her talk with the Bishop, she added, "But of course it is very kind of your mother to propose it. Perhaps I had better go. I should not like to appear ungrateful to her." And Luke left her, thinking to himself, "After all I don't believe she wants to do that kind of work. Anyhow, she does not seem very keen about it; we may have been right in not encouraging it before." Rachel, as she took her place at the table at the mothers' meeting, and opened the book she was given to read, felt nervous. She was quite sure that the mothers were full of curiosity to see how she would conduct herself at this first appearance at their meeting, and she was still more convinced that in her mother-in-law she had a severe critic. She was so nervous that she found herself even wondering how to pronounce some of the words. The book was about Missionary work in India and in places of which she had not heard before. Her mistakes were never passed over but were corrected at once by Mrs. Greville. She felt like a child at school and decided that this was the last time she would ever come to the mothers' meeting so long as Mrs. Greville was present.