"I wonder when he'll come." She had watched her mother's figure disappear along the lane, and had plucked a flower or two to pieces before she returned within the house. He will not come till the evening, she determined,--till the evening, when his day's work in the brewery would be over. Then she thought of the quarrel between him and Tappitt, and wondered what it might be. She was quite sure that Tappitt was wrong, and thought of him at once as an obstinate, foolish, pigheaded old man. Yes; he would come to her, and she would take care to be provided in that article of cream which he pretended to love so well. She would not have to run away again. But how lucky on that previous evening had been that necessity, seeing that it had given opportunity for that great display of a lover's excellence on Rowan's part. Having settled all this in her mind, she went into the house, and was beginning to think of her household work, when she heard a man's steps in the passage. She went at once out from the sitting-room, and encountered Luke Rowan at the door. "How d'ye do?" said he. "Is Mrs. Ray at home?" "Mamma?--no. You must have met her on the road if you've come from Baslehurst." "But I could not meet her on the road, because I've come across the fields." "Oh!--that accounts for it." "And she's away in Baslehurst, is she?" "She's gone in to see my sister, Mrs. Prime." Rachel, still standing at the door of the sitting-room, made no attempt of asking Rowan into the parlour. "And mayn't I come in?" he said. Rachel was absolutely ignorant whether, under such circumstances, she ought to allow him to enter. But there he was, in the house, and at any rate she could not turn him out. "I'm afraid you'll have to wait a long time if you wait for mamma," she said, slightly making way, so that he obtained admittance. Was she not a hypocrite? Did she not know that Mrs. Ray's absence would be esteemed by him as a great gain, and not a loss? Why did she thus falsely talk of his waiting a long time? Dogs fight with their teeth, and horses with their heels; swans with their wings, and cats with their claws;--so also do women use such weapons as nature has provided for them. "I came specially to see you," said he; "not but what I should be very glad to see your mother, too, if she comes back before I am gone. But I don't suppose she will, for you won't let me stay so long as that." "Well, now you mention it, I don't think I shall, for I have got ever so many things to do;--the dinner to get ready, and the house to look after." This she did by way of making him acquainted with her mode of life,--according to the plan which she had arranged for her own guidance.