The conversation ended in an undertaking on Rachel's part that she would not answer the note till the following day. "Of course that means," said Rachel, "that I am to answer it just as Dolly thinks fit." But she repented of these words as soon as they were spoken, and repented of them almost in ashes when her mother declared, with tears in her eyes, that it was not her intention to be guided by Dorothea in this matter. "You ought not to say such things as that, Rachel," she said. "No, mamma, I ought not; for there is no one so good as you are; and if you'll say that you think I ought not to go, I'll write to Cherry, and explain it to her at once. I don't care a bit about the party,--as far as the party is concerned." But Mrs. Ray would not now pronounce any injunction on the matter. She had made up her mind as to what she would do. She would call upon Mr. Comfort at the parsonage, explain the whole thing to him, and be guided altogether by his counsel. Not a word was said in the cottage about the invitation when Mrs. Prime came back in the evening, nor was a word said on the following morning. Mrs. Ray had declared her intention of going up to the parsonage, and neither of her daughters had asked her why she was going. Rachel had no need to ask, for she well understood her mother's purpose. As to Mrs. Prime, she was in these days black and full of gloom, asking but few questions, watching the progress of events with the eyes of an evil-singing prophetess, but keeping back her words till the moment should come in which she would be driven by her inner impulses to speak them forth with terrible strength. When the breakfast was over, Mrs. Ray took her bonnet and started forth to the parsonage. I do not know that a widow, circumstanced as was Mrs. Ray, could do better than go to her clergyman for advice, but nevertheless, when she got to Mr. Comfort's gate she felt that the task of explaining her purpose would not be without difficulty. It would be necessary to tell everything; how Rachel had become suddenly an object of interest to Mr. Luke Rowan, how Dorothea suspected terrible things, and how Rachel was anxious for the world's vanities. The more she thought over it, the more sure she felt that Mr. Comfort would put an embargo upon the party. It seemed but yesterday that he had been telling her, with all his pulpit unction, that the pleasures of this world should never be allowed to creep near the heart. With doubting feet and doubting heart she walked up to the parsonage door, and almost immediately found herself in the presence of her husband's old friend.