There was something very touching in this entire identification of these two solitary existences which still were but one life; and Rachel was not Rachel till she came to the very last words. Before that, with the strange and constantly varying doubleness of her sisterly character, she had been once again the representative of Louis. One thing struck them all as they looked at her small features, fired with this sudden inspiration of Louis’s pride and spirit. About as different as possible--at the extreme antipodes of unresemblance--were their two visitors of this day,--this small little fairy, nervous, timid, and doubtful, fatherless, homeless, and without so much as a name, and that assured and commanding old lady, owning no superior, and as secure of her own position and authority as any reigning monarch. Yes, they were about as dissimilar as two human creatures could be; yet the lookers-on were startled to recognise that subtle link of likeness, seldom a likeness of features, which people call family resemblance. Could it have come through this man, who was so repugnant to them both? “They are all coming down on Monday next week,” said Rachel, “so we have just three days all to ourselves; and I thought, perhaps--perhaps, if you please to let me, I might bring Louis to-night?” “Surely, my dear,” said Mrs Atheling. “Oh, thank you!--thank you very much!” cried Rachel, once more bestowing an eager yet shy caress upon that motherly hand. “Louis is not like me at all,” added the anxious sister, afraid lest he should suffer by any preconceived notion of resemblance. “He is a man; and old Miss Bridget used to call him a noble brave boy, like what you read of in books. I do not know,” said Rachel, “I never read of any one, even in a book, like Louis. I think he ought to be a king.” “But, indeed, Rachel,” said Agnes, “I am quite sure you are wrong. Ask mamma. You ought to let him go away.” “Do _you_ think so?” said Rachel wistfully, looking up in Mrs Atheling’s face. But Mrs Atheling, though under any other circumstances she would of course have insisted upon the absolute propriety of a young man “making his own way,” paused, much perplexed, and answered nothing for the moment. “My dears,” she said at last, very doubtfully, “I do not know at all what to say. You should have some one who could advise you better; and it depends on the young gentleman’s inclinations, and a great many things beside that I am not able to judge of; for, indeed, though it may only be my old-fashioned notions, I do not like to hear of young people going against the advice of their friends.” CHAPTER XXI. THE YOUNG PRINCE.