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of fate and obedience, and there was less active resistance, though

learning it was not, only letting teaching be thrown at them All the

rest of the day, except those two hours, they ran wild about the house,

garden, and beach--the latter place under the inspection of Coombe,

whom, since the "Jolly Mariner" proposal, Rachel did not in the

least trust; all the less when she heard that Major Keith, whose

soldier-servant he had originally been, thought very highly of hiarden sounds, and

delicate as Lady Teue, she never appeared to be incommoded by the uproar in which she

lived, and had even been seen careering about the nursery, or running

about the garden, in a way that Grace and Rachel thought would tire

a strong woman As to a tete-a-tete with her, it was never secured by

anything short of Rachel's strong will, for the children were always

with her, and she went to bed, or at any rate to her own room, when they

did, and she was so perfectly able to play and laugh with theht her sufficiently depressed, and co her

hat their own reed

that after all "she had been very young, and Sir Stephen very old, and

perhaps too much must not be expected of her"