"I think perhaps I ought to have had the walls papered afresh and a lighter colour," she had said. "I daresay it looks a little dull to a young creature like you, and," she added, remorse getting the better of her, "I ought to be grateful to you, for though you don't like my papers you love my son," and Mrs. Greville ended by bestowing a hearty kiss on her son's wife before hurrying away. Rachel was left standing in the middle of the room with her eyes full of tears. Something about her mother-in-law had touched her for the first time; and she began to wonder if she might not possibly in the future learn to love her. She wondered too how she could ever look her in the face again. She must have seemed so terribly ungrateful and ungracious, not to say ill mannered. But her glance round the room at the walls and its furniture had been quite involuntary, and she had had no intention whatever of letting Mrs. Greville know how she disliked them. She smiled now as she remembered her mother-in-law's criticism on her pretty overall, but the smile faded as she realised that though she had taken the Bishop's advice and was trying hard not to allow her thoughts to rest on the trials that she had had to meet in her new home, she had not by any means yet succeeded in learning to love her mother-in-law. [Illustration] CHAPTER XI. THE CHOIR THREATEN TO STRIKE. It had not taken Rachel long to discover that she had married an untidy man. Being very tidy and dainty in her ways herself, this discovery was rather a shock to her. But she came to the conclusion that Luke's mind was so full of the things that really mattered, that the less important things were nothing to him though they meant a great deal to her. Remembering her promise, the morning after she had prepared his study for him, she had awakened earlier than usual and had gone there the first thing. She had promised him that she would be responsible for keeping it in order and that Polly should have nothing to do with it. On opening the door she stood still and laughed at what she saw. It looked to her in terrible disorder! Though he tried to convince her afterwards that there was such a thing as a tidy untidyness. He knew just where everything was, he said, and could lay his hand upon it. But to Rachel's eyes disorder reigned. Because the waste paper basket was not just at hand, he had thrown on to the floor his many torn up letters. Books were piled on the ground. His table was strewn with papers: there was scarcely a chair without some volume of reference on its seat. Rachel picked up all the torn letters putting them into the waste paper basket, arranged the books, with a certain amount of trepidation, on the shelves, and finally lifted up every letter and paper from the table to dust them, laying them back in exactly the same position as she found them. She opened the window carefully, anxious lest some of the papers that strewed the desk should take to themselves wings and fly away.