"Is there anything to be read aloud?" presently asked Alick.
"You have not by chance got 'Framley Parsonage?'"
"I wish I had. I did pick up 'Silas Marner,' at a station, thinking you
might like it," and he glanced at Rachel, who had, he suspected, thought
his purchase an act of weakness. "Have you met with it?"
"I have met with nothing of the sort since you were here last;" then
turning to Rachel, "Alick indulges me with novels, for my good curate
had rather read the catalogue of a sale any day than meddle with one,
and I can't set on my pupil teacher in a book where I don't know what is
coming."
"We will get 'Framley,'" said Alick.
"Bessie has it. She read me a very clever scene about a weak young
parson bent on pleasing himself; and offered to lend me the book, but I
thought it would not edify Will Walker. But, no doubt, you have read it
long ago."
"No," said Rachel; and something withheld her from disclaiming such
empty employments. Indeed, she was presently much interested in the
admirable portraiture of "Silas Marner," and still more by the keen,
vivid enjoyment, critical, droll, and moralizing, displayed by a man who
heard works of fiction so rarely that they were always fresh to him, and
who looked on them as studies of life. His hands were busy all the time
carving a boss for the roof of one of the side aisles of his church--the
last step in its gradual restoration.
That night there was no excitement of nerve, no morbid fancy to trouble
Rachel's slumbers; she only awoke as the eight o'clock bell sounded
through the open window, and for the first time for months rose
less weary than she had gone to rest. Week-day though it were, the
description "sweet day, so calm, so cool, so bright," constantly
recurred to her mind as she watched the quiet course of occupation.
Alick, after escorting his uncle to a cottage, found her searching among
the stores in the music stand.
"You unmusical female," he said, "what is that for?"
"Your uncle spoke of music last night, and I thought he would like it."
"I thought you had no such propensity."
"I learnt like other people, but it was the only thing I could not do
as well as Grace, and I thought it wasted time, and was a young ladyism;
but if can recover music enough to please him, I should be glad."
"Thank you," said Alick, earnestly. "He is very much pleased with your
voice in speaking. Indeed, I believe I first heard it with his ears."
"This is a thorough lady's collection of music," said Rachel, looking
through it to hide her blush of pleasure. "Altogether the house has not
a bachelor look."