excited, he exerted himself to relieve it by
attracting her interest and attention. He could
be very agreeable when he wished it; and now he
succeeded perhaps all the better that his motive
was a kind and unselfish one. Mr. and Mrs.
Wood were charmed with him, and even the
melancholy .Rachel at length looked up, and took
her part in the conversation with some appearance
of zest, and in doing so gave involuntary evidence
of both a quick apprehension and a cultivated
mind. As for Captain Grey, if he had helped to
entertain others, he was himself rewarded, for he
was astonished to find how quickly the time had
slipped away; and still more so, to be forced to
acknowledge to himself that he was by no means
so oppressed and wearied by an evening passed in
the society of his fellow-creatures as by an equal
number of hours spent alone.
A beginning having thus been made, few days elapsed in which he did not meet the inhabitants of the parsonage. He questioned Mr. Wood about Rachel, but learnt very little. About two years before, the patron of the living had written to inquire whether Mr. Wood would admit as a boarder a lady with whom he was not personally acquainted, but whom he knew to be desirous of finding a home in some retired village on the seacoast. Understanding that her position was a very lonely one, and that it would be an act of kindness to do so, Mr. Wood agreed to receive her, and she had arrived two years before, dressed in the deepest mourning, and evidently in great affliction. She proved not only most amiable in disposition, but very valuable as an assistant in the parish, and her host and hostess had become sincerely attached to her. But open and unreserved as she appeared in other respects, she had never communicated to them her previous history: all she had ever said about it, was to beg they would not question her, as it was too painful to dwell upon. She had, however, at different times, made mention of a father and mother, a sister, and a cousin whom she had lost, and of the latter with such evident emotion that they imagined he had perhaps been her lover or affianced husband. She had now no relations living, or at least none with whom she kept up any ^intercourse. She was habitually calm and quiet, and now much more even in spirits than she had been at first, though still appearing at times greatly depressed; and even when Mr. and Mrs. Wood occasionally quitted their seclusion to visit some of their relations, Rachel, though pressed to accompany them, preferred remaining behind alone, to renewing, even slightly, her intercourse with the world.
To this scanty information Captain Grey listened with an interest which increased as he became more intimately acquainted with Miss Morland. His own morbid apathy had passed away. Every morning he arose, not as formerly, to a dreary blank, but to the interest of his new acquaintance, for he had now an object before him, that of winning her back at once from her sorrow and from her strict seclusion.
It did not seem that his efforts were fated to be unsuccessful: by degrees Rachel’s listless depression appeared to yield to them, and she awoke to the enjoyment both of the natural scenes around her and of the companionship and sympathy which brightened them; and when he saw the smile with which she greeted his approach, the evident pleasure which she took in his society, other feelings than those of disinterested kindness began, though at first unconsciously to himself, to dawn within him, and the day was a weary one to him in which, either in a visit at the parsonage or a ramble over the rocks, he had not enjoyed the society of Rachel. His evenings were always spent in her company, for it had become a settled thing that he should drink tea with the Woods, who, liking all they saw and all they heard of him, witnessed with pleasure his increasing intimacy with their friend.
The three weeks originally proposed as the term of his stay had long since elapsed, but he had found means to prolong it under different pretexts, until autumn was now far advanced. He felt that he could not linger on for ever without any settled aim or purpose, and it crossed his mind that in doing so he might not be acting honourably towards Miss Morland, should she indeed feel any greater pleasure in his company than in that of merely an agreeable acquaintance. He rejected the unwelcome scruple as the offspring of vanity, but could not banish it from his mind, and at length reluctantly resolved to depart the following week. He went up to the parsonage, purposing to inform his friends of his intention, and was himself astonished at the pain this decision cost him, and to find that his step was once more as slow and weary as it had been when he first sought his present abode. It was a relief to him to be informed that Mr. and Mrs. Wood were gone out for the day, and that Miss Morland was walking. He felt reprieved. Perhaps he had been over-hasty; there was no occasion for him to go quite so soon; at all events he should have time to think the matter over. Mechanically he bent his steps towards the sea-shore: often and often he had wandered there with Rachel Morland; was he after a few brief days to do so no more? Whichever way he turned his eyes, her image seemed to flit before them: should he have courage to banish it from his memory, or would it haunt him thus in every place? As he rounded a small headland, absorbed in these questionings, he almost started to see her in life and limb seated on the sands at a little distance from him. He thought how much she was altered since the first time he had seen her, — then, as now, gazing forth over the boundless waters. The haggard paleness of her cheek had given place to a delicate but more life-like hue; and if her countenance still bore the impress of some past sorrow, the look of hopeless despon- dency was gone. Was this indeed his work? Would it be undone by his departure? And if so, could he, ought he, to tear himself away?
The sound of his footsteps was scarcely audible on the soft sand, and she did not perceive him till he stood beside her and addressed her. The sad serious look instantly vanished from her face, and it was with the bright smile to which he was now accustomed, that she turned to welcome him. But
it met no answering smile, for, inexplicably to