which was reserved for the naughty one to live unhappy in ever after.
In fact, Rachel, in her stern consistency, had made up her mind to
avoid and discourage the Colonel, and to prevent her own heart from
relenting in his favour, or him from having any opportunity of asking
an explanation, and with this determination she absented herself both
from Ermine's parlour and Lady Temple's croquet ground; and if they
met on the esplanade or in a morning call, took care never to give
the chance of a tete-a-tete, which he was evidently seeking.

The croquet practice still survived. In truth, Fanny was afraid to
ride lest Lord Keith should join her, and was glad to surround
herself with companions. She could not see the enemy without a
nervous trepidation, and was eager to engross herself with anybody or
thing that came to hand so as to avoid the necessity of attending to
him. More than once did she linger among her boys "to speak to Mr.
Touchett," that she might avoid a ten minutes' walk with his
lordship; and for nothing was she more grateful than for the quiet
and ever ready tact with which Bessie Keith threw herself into the
breach. That bright damsel was claimed by Lord Keith as a kinswoman,
and, accepting the relationship, treated him with the pretty
playfulness and coquetry that elderly men enjoy from lively young
girls, and thus often effected a diversion in her friend's favour, to
the admiration both of the Colonel and of Lady Temple herself; all,
however, by intuition, for not a word had been hinted to her of what
had passed during that game at croquet. She certainly was a most
winning creature; the Colonel was charmed with her conversation in
its shades between archness and good sense, and there was no one who
did not look forward with dread to the end of her visit, when after a
short stay with one of her married cousins, she must begin her
residence with the blind uncle to whose establishment she, in her