. . .e perfectly confidential with her new friends—perfectly confidential—far more so than they, accustomed to the domestic privateness of humble English life, could understand. This poor girl had no restraint upon her for family pride or family honour; no compensation in family sympathy; and her listeners, who had very little skill in the study of character, though one of them had written a novel, were extremely puzzled with a kind of doubleness, perfectly innocent and unconscious, which made Rachel’s thoughts and words at different moments like the words and the thoughts of two different people. At one time she was herself, humble, timid, and content to do anything which any authority bade her do; but in a moment she remembered Louis; and the change was instantaneous—she became proud, stately, obdurate, even defiant. She was no longer herself, but the shadow and representative{39} of her brother; and in this view Rachel resisted and defied every influ. . . Read More