And he had come, unaware of his own motive, to share this overpowering and triumphant thought with Agnes Atheling, a girl who was no mate for him, as inferior in family fortune and breeding as it was possible to imagine--and now stood abashed and reproved to see that all his simple auditors thought at once, not of him and his altered position, but of those grand and primitive realities--Death and Grief. He went away hastily and with impatience, displeased with them and with himself--went away on a rapid walk for miles out of his way, striding along the quiet country roads as if for a race; and a race it was, with his own thoughts, which still were fastest, and not to be overtaken. He knew the truths of philosophy, the limited lines and parallels of human logic and reason; but he had not been trained among the great original truths of nature; he knew only what was true to the mind,--not what was true to the heart. CHAPTER IX. A VISIT. “Come down, Agnes, make haste; mamma wants you--and Miss Anastasia’s carriage is just driving up to the door.” So said Marian, coming languidly into their sleeping-room, and quite indifferent to Miss Anastasia. She was rather glad indeed to hasten Agnes away, to make an excuse for herself, and gain a half-hour of solitude to read over again Louis’s letter. It was worth while to get letters like those of Louis. Marian sat down on one of Miss Bridget’s old-fashioned chairs, and leaned her beautiful head against its high unyielding angular back. The cover on it was of an ancient blue-striped tabinet, faded, yet still retaining some of its colour, which answered very well to relieve those beautiful half-curled, half-braided locks of Marian’s hair, which had such a tendency to escape from all kinds of bondage. She lay there half reclining upon this stiff uneasy piece of furniture, not at all disturbed by its angularity, her pretty cheek flushing, her pretty lips trembling into half-conscious smiles, reading over again Louis’s letter, which she held after an embracing fashion in both her hands. And Rachel, with great diffidence, yet by the Rector’s invitation, had gone to visit Miss Rivers at the Old Wood House. When the other Miss Rivers, chief of the name, entered the little parlour of the Lodge, she found the mother and daughter, who were both acquainted with her secret, awaiting her very anxiously. She came in with a grave face and deliberate step. She had not changed her dress in any particular, except the colour of her bonnet, which was black, and had some woeful decorations of crape; but it was evident that she too had been greatly moved and impressed by her young cousin’s death. “He is dead,” she said, almost as abruptly as the Rector, when she had taken her usual place. “Yes, poor young George Rivers, who was the heir of the house--it was very well for him that he should die.” “Oh, Miss Rivers!” said Mrs Atheling, “I am very, very sorry for poor Lord Winterbourne.”