After that there was no further talk of running away; but the morning did not pass with them lightly or pleasantly. They made an effort to sit quietly at their work, and to talk over the doings at Mrs. Tappitt's ball; but this coming of the young man threw its shadow, more or less, over everything. They could not talk, or even look at each other, as they would have talked and looked had no such advent been expected. They dined at one, as was their custom, and after dinner I think it probable that each of them stood before her glass with more care than she would have done on ordinary days. It was no ordinary day, and Mrs. Ray certainly put on a clean cap. "Will that collar do?" she said to Rachel. "Oh, yes, mamma," said Rachel, almost angrily. She also had taken her little precautions, but she could not endure to have such precautions acknowledged, even by a word. The afternoon was very tedious. I don't know why Luke should have been expected exactly at three; but Mrs. Ray had, I think, made up her mind that he might be looked for at that time with the greatest certainty. But at three he was sitting down to dinner, and even at half-past five had not as yet left his room at the "Dragon." "I suppose that we can't have tea till he's been," said Mrs. Ray, just at that hour; "that is, if he does come at all." Rachel felt that her mother was vexed, because she suspected that Mr. Rowan was not about to keep his word. "Don't let his coming make any difference, mamma," said Rachel. "I will go and get tea." "Wait a few minutes longer, my dear," said Mrs. Ray. It was all very well for Rachel to beg that it might make "no difference." It did make a very great deal of difference. "I think I'll go over and see Mrs. Sturt for a few minutes," said Rachel, getting up. "Pray don't, my dear,--pray don't; I should never know what to say to him if he should come while you were away." So Rachel again sat down. She had just, for the second time, declared her intention of getting tea, having now resolved that no weakness on her mother's part should hinder her, when Mrs. Ray, from her seat near the window, saw the young man coming over the green. He was walking very slowly, swinging a big stick as he came, and had taken himself altogether away from the road, almost to the verge of Mrs. Sturt's farmyard. "There he is," said Mrs. Ray, with a little start. Rachel, who was struggling hard to retain her composure, could not resist her impulse to jump up and look out upon the green from behind her mother's shoulder. But she did this from some little distance inside the room, so that no one might possibly see her from the green. "Yes; there he is, certainly," and, having thus identified their visitor, she immediately sat down again. "He's talking to Farmer Sturt's ploughboy," said Mrs. Ray. "He's asking where we live," said Rachel. "He's never been here before."