"I wish I could fatigue myself till I was ready to drop."
She was in the same humour in the evening. I discovered in one of my
friend's precious publications--the Life, Letters, and Labours of Miss
Jane Ann Stamper, forty-fourth edition--passages which bore with
a marvellous appropriateness on Rachel's present position. Upon my
proposing to read them, she went to the piano. Conceive how little she
must have known of serious people, if she supposed that my patience was
to be exhausted in that way! I kept Miss Jane Ann Stamper by me, and
waited for events with the most unfaltering trust in the future.
Old Mr. Ablewhite never made his appearance that night. But I knew the
importance which his worldly greed attached to his son's marriage with
Miss Verinder--and I felt a positive conviction (do what Mr. Godfrey
might to prevent it) that we should see him the next day. With his
interference in the matter, the storm on which I had counted would
certainly come, and the salutary exhaustion of Rachel's resisting powers
would as certainly follow. I am not ignorant that old Mr. Ablewhite has
the reputation generally (especially among his inferiors) of being a
remarkably good-natured man.
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