"Do you particularly want to go, my dear?" Mrs. Ray said, after a pause. "Yes, mamma; I should like to go." Then Mrs. Ray uttered a little sound which betokened uneasiness, and was again silent for a while. "I can't understand why you want to go to this place,--so particularly. You never used to care about such things. You know your sister won't like it, and I'm not at all sure that you ought to go." "I'll tell you why I wish it particularly, only--" "Well, my dear." "I don't know whether I can make you understand just what I mean." "If you tell me, I shall understand, I suppose." Rachel considered her words for a moment or two before she spoke, and then she endeavoured to explain herself. "It isn't that I care for this party especially, mamma, though I own that, after what the girls have said, I should like to be there; but I feel--" "You feel what, my dear?" "It is this, mamma. Dolly and I do not agree about these things, and I don't intend to let her manage me just in the way she thinks right." "Oh, Rachel!" "Well, mamma, would you wish it? If you could tell me that you really think it wrong to go to parties, I would give them up. Indeed it wouldn't be very much to give up, for I don't often get the chance. But you don't say so. You only say that I had better not go, because Dolly doesn't like it. Now, I won't be ruled by her. Don't look at me in that way, mamma. Is it right that I should be?" "You have heard what she says about going away." "I shall be very sorry if she goes, and I hope she won't; but I can't think that her threatening you in that way ought to make any difference. And--I'll tell you more; I do particularly wish to go to Mrs. Tappitt's, because of all that Dolly has said about,--about Mr. Rowan. I wish to show her and you that I am not afraid to meet him. Why should I be afraid of any one?" "You should be afraid of doing wrong." "Yes; and if it were wrong to meet any other young man I ought not to go; but there is nothing specially wrong in my meeting him. She has said very unkind things about it, and I intend that she shall know that I will not notice them." As Rachel spoke Mrs. Ray looked up at her, and was surprised by the expression of unrelenting purpose which she saw there. There had come over her face that motion in her eyes and that arching of her brows which Mrs. Ray had seen before, but which hitherto she had hardly construed into their true meaning. Now she was beginning to construe these signs aright, and to understand that there would be difficulty in managing her little family.