On that day Rowan came out to the cottage in the evening and was formally introduced to Mrs. Prime. Mrs. Ray, I fear, did not find the little tea-party so agreeable on that evening as she had done on the previous occasion. Mrs. Prime did make some effort at conversation; she did endeavour to receive the young man as her future brother-in-law; she was gracious to him with such graciousness as she possessed;--but the duration of their meal was terribly long, and even Mrs. Ray herself felt relieved when the two lovers went forth together for their evening walk. I think there must have been some triumph in Rachel's heart as she tied on her hat before she started. I think she must have remembered the evening on which her sister had been so urgent with her to go to the Dorcas meeting;--when she had so obstinately refused that invitation, and had instead gone out to meet the Tappitt girls, and had met with them the young man of whom her sister had before been speaking with so much horror. Now he was there on purpose to take her with him, and she went forth with him, leaning lovingly on his arm, while yet close under her sister's eyes. I think there must have been a gleam of triumph in her face as she put her hand with such confidence well round her lover's arm. Girls do triumph in their lovers,--in their acknowledged and permitted lovers, as young men triumph in their loves which are not acknowledged or perhaps permitted. A man's triumph is for the most part over when he is once allowed to take his place at the family table, as a right, next to his betrothed. He begins to feel himself to be a sacrificial victim,--done up very prettily with blue and white ribbons round his horns, but still an ox prepared for sacrifice. But the girl feels herself to be exalted for those few weeks as a conqueror, and to be carried along in an ovation of which that bucolic victim, tied round with blue ribbons on to his horns, is the chief grace and ornament. In this mood, no doubt, both Rachel and Luke Rowan went forth, leaving the two widows together in the cottage. "It is pretty to see her so happy, isn't it now?" said Mrs. Ray. The question for the moment made Mrs. Prime uncomfortable and almost wretched, but it gave her the opportunity which in her heart she desired of recanting her error in regard to Luke Rowan's character. She wished to give in her adhesion to the marriage,--to be known to have acknowledged its fitness so that she could, with some true word of sisterly love, wish her sister well. In Rachel's presence she could not have first made this recantation. Though Rachel spoke no triumph, there was a triumph in her eye, which prevented almost the possibility of such yielding on the part of Dorothea. But when the thing should have been once done, when she should once have owned that Rachel was not wrong, then gradually she could bring herself round to the utterance of some kindly expression.