But Mrs Atheling’s utmost penetration could not tell. Miss Rivers began to pull down the books, to look at them, to strike her riding-whip on the floor, and call out good-humouredly in her loud voice, which every one in the house could hear, that she was not to be kept waiting by a parcel of girls. Finally the girls made their appearance in their best dresses; their new patroness hurried them into her carriage, and drove instantly away. CHAPTER X. MARIAN ON TRIAL. Miss Anastasia “preferred not to see” Rachel--yet, with a wayward inclination still, was moved to drive by a circuitous road in front of the Old Wood House, where the girl was. The little vehicle went heavily along the grassy road, cutting the turf, but making little sound as it rolled past the windows of the invalid. There was the velvet lawn, the trim flower-plots, the tall autumnal flowers, the straight and well-kept garden-paths, lying vacant and shadowless beneath the sun--but there was nothing to be discovered under the closed blinds of this shut-up and secluded house. “Why do they keep their blinds down?” said Miss Anastasia; “all the house surely is not one invalid’s room? Lucy was a little fool always. I do not believe there is anything the matter with her. She had what these soft creatures call a disappointment in love--words have different meanings, child. And why does this girl go to see Lucy Rivers? I suppose because she is such a one herself.” “It is because Miss Rivers was kind to her,” said Agnes; “and the Rector asked her to go----” “The Rector? Do you mean to tell me,” said Miss Anastasia, turning quickly upon her companion, “that when Lionel Rivers comes to the Lodge it is for _her_ he comes?” “I do not know,” said Agnes. She was provoked to feel how her face burned under the old lady’s gaze. She could not help showing something of the anger and vexation she felt. She looked up hastily, with a glance of resentment. “He has been very much interested in Louis--he has been very kind to him,” said Agnes, not at all indisposed, for the sake of the Rector, whom every one plotted against, to throw down her glove to Miss Anastasia. “I believe, indeed, it has been to inquire about Louis, that he ever came to the Lodge.” Miss Anastasia touched her ponies with her whip, and said, “Humph!” “Both of them! odd enough,” said the old lady. Agnes, who was considerably offended, and not at all in an amicable state of mind, did not choose to inquire who Miss Anastasia meant by “both of them,” nor what it was that was “odd enough.”