The two elder boys were with her; and while Francis, slowly apprehending
her meaning in part, began to bristle up with the assurance that
"Colonel Keith never brayed in his life," Conrade caught the point with
dangerous relish, and dwelt with colonial disrespect, that alarmed
his mother, on the opinion expressed by some unguarded person in his
hearing, that Lord Keith was little better than an old donkey. "He is
worse than Aunt Rachel," said Conrade, meditatively, "now she has saved
Don, and keeps away from the croquet."
Meantime Rachel studied her own feelings. A few weeks ago her heart
would have leapt at the announcement; but now her mission had found her
out, and she did not want to be drawn aside from it. Colonel Keith
might have many perfections, but alike as Scotsman, soldier, and
High-Churchman, he was likely to be critical of the head of the F. U. E.
E., and matters had gone too far now for her to afford to doubt, or
to receive a doubting master. Moreover, it would be despicable to be
diverted from a great purpose by a courtship like any ordinary woman;
nor must marriage settlements come to interfere with her building
and endowment of the asylum, and ultimate devotion of her property
thereunto. No, she would school herself into a system of quiet
discouragement, and reserve herself and her means as the nucleus of the
great future establishment for maintaining female rights of labour.