Upon all this tumult of thought and feeling, Agnes looked on, saying nothing--looked on, by no means enjoying her spectatorship and superior knowledge. It was a “situation” which might have pleased Mr Endicott, but it terribly embarrassed Agnes, who found it no pleasure at all to be so much wiser than her neighbours. She dared not confide the secret to Louis any more than she could to the Rector; and she would have been extremely unhappy between them, but for the relief and comfort of that fable, which was quickly growing into shape and form. It had passed out of her controlling hands already, and began to exercise over her the sway which a real created thing always exercises over the mind even of its author: it had ceased to be the direct personal affair she had intended to make it; it told its story, but after a more delicate process, and Agnes expended all her graceful fancy upon its perfection. She thought now that Louis might find it out as well as the Rector. It was an eloquent appeal, heart-warm and touching to them both. CHAPTER XVII. RACHEL’S DOUBTS. After Louis, the most urgent business in the house of the Athelings was that of Rachel, who was so pertinaciously anxious to be employed, that her friends found it very difficult to evade her constant entreaties. Rachel’s education--or rather Rachel’s want of education--had been very different from that of Marian and Agnes. She had no traditions of respectability to deter her from anything she could do; and she had been accustomed to sing to the guests at Winterbourne, and concluded that it would make very little difference to her, whether her performance was in a public concert-room or a private assembly. “No one would care at all for me; no one would ever think of me or look at me,” said Rachel. “If I sang well, that would be all that any one thought of; and we need not tell Louis--and I would not mind myself--and no one would ever know.” “But I have great objections to it, my dear,” said Mrs Atheling, with some solemnity. “I should rather a hundred times take in work myself, or do anything with my own hands, than let my girls do this. It is not respectable for a young girl. A public appearance! I should be grieved and ashamed beyond anything. I should indeed, my dear.” “I am very sorry, Mrs Atheling,” said Rachel, wistfully; “but it is not anything wrong.” “Not wrong--but not at all respectable,” said Mrs Atheling, “and unfeminine, and very dangerous indeed, and a discreditable position for a young girl.”