And then Rachel told them how it had fared with her on the previous night. Rachel had very little to say about the Rector; she had given him up conscientiously to Agnes, and with a distant and reverent admiration of his loftiness, contemplated him afar off, too great a person for her friendship. “But in the morning the maid came and took me to Miss Rivers--did you ever see Miss Rivers?--she is very pale--and pretty, though she is old, and a very, very great invalid,” said Rachel. “Some one has to sit up with her every night, and she has so many troubles--headaches, and pains in her side, and coughs, and every sort of thing! She told me all about them as she lay on the sofa in her pretty white dressing-gown, and in _such_ a soft voice as if she was quite used to them, and did not mind. Do you think you could be a nurse to any one who was ill, Agnes?” “She _has_ been a nurse to all of us when we were ill,” said Marian, rousing herself for the effort, and immediately subsiding into the pensiveness which the sad little beauty would not suffer herself to break, even though she began in secret to be considerably interested about the interior of the mysterious Wood House, and the invisible Miss Rivers. Marian thought Louis would not be pleased if he could imagine her thinking of any one but him, so soon after he had gone away. “But I don’t mean at home--I mean a stranger,” said Rachel, “one whom you did not _love_. I think it must be rather hard sometimes; but do you know I was very nearly offering to be nurse to Miss Rivers, she spoke so kindly to me? And then Louis will have to work,” continued the faithful little sister, with tears in her eyes; “you must tell me what I can do, Agnes, not to be a burden upon Louis. Oh, do you think any one would give me money for singing now?” CHAPTER VII. LORD WINTERBOURNE. Lord Winterbourne, all his life, had been a man of guile; he was so long experienced in it, that dissimulation became easy enough to him, when he was not startled or thrown suddenly off his guard. Already every one around him supposed he had quite forgiven and forgotten the wild escapade of Louis. He had no confidant whatever, not even a valet or a steward, and his most intimate associate knew nothing of his dark and secret counsels. When any one mentioned the ungovernable youth who had fled from the Hall, Lord Winterbourne said, “Pooh, pooh--he will soon discover his mistake,” and smiled his pale and sinister smile. Such a face as his could not well look benign; but people were accustomed to his face, and thought it his misfortune--and everybody set him down as, in this instance at least, of a very forgiving and indulgent spirit, willing that the lad should find out his weakness by experiment, but not at all disposed to inflict any punishment upon his unruly son.