"Yes, I'm sorry to have to leave you your first evening," he answered, "but it's the Church Council and I must be there. I got it postponed till to-day as it should have been last Thursday. I am sorry dear." Rachel smiled. She would not let him see her keen disappointment, nor know that the fear she had expressed to him the evening before gained ground by his words. "I suppose," she said laughing, "that this is what I must expect, having married a clergyman." "I am afraid it is! But we shall soon be working side by side and going about together. I shall want you with me. My only fear is that you will work too hard." The picture he had drawn of them working together had cheered her. It was at tea that Rachel asked if his mother was on the Church Council. "No," he answered, "but she is on everything else. She is as good as a Curate. I can't tell you what she has done for me since I have been here. It has made all the difference to me having her. You will get to love her I know." "I shall never love her," thought Rachel, "but I must try, I must for his sake, and he shall not find out if I can't." Luke looked at his watch, and rose quickly. "I must be going," he said. Left alone, Rachel tried to check a slight feeling of homesickness that attacked her. The room was so small and rather dark and yet it was scarcely time to light up. She flung the window open and stood by it looking out into the little yard with the sad looking bushes. Should she ever get used to her surroundings, she wondered, or would she always have the feeling, almost of suffocation, that she was experiencing this evening? It was all so different to her home in the country. From the drawing-room window at Heathland she could see a wide expanse of country and could even feel the wind that blew from the moors. It was not a large house but a thoroughly comfortable one, standing in four or five acres of land. They had lived in a much larger place, in Rachel's childhood, but her father dying, they had moved about ten years ago into what was called Heathland cottage. Rachel had lived a life of perfect freedom, her only definite duty being that of taking care of her invalid mother. She knew nothing of housekeeping, her elder sister was the housekeeper, and as for cooking! She scarcely knew how to boil a potato. She forgot that tea was still on the table, and was startled by Polly's voice asking her if she might take the tea things away, as she thought Mrs. Greville would be coming in by-and-bye, and would not be pleased to see them not washed up. Might she take them? Rachel gasped at the remark. Was she then to be under Mrs. Greville's eye, or rather, was her mother-in-law to instruct Polly as to what to do?