on the little Rectory like a hurricane--of course you know the people
about here regard her as something semi-divine!--and told the girl she
had come to take her back to Crosby Ledgers for the Sunday. So the poor
child packed up, all in a flutter, and they set off together in the
pony-carriage--six miles. And by the time they had gone four Rachel had
discovered she had made a mistake--that the girl wasn't clever, and
would add nothing to the party. So she quietly told her that she was
afraid, after all, the party wouldn't suit her. And then she turned the
pony's head, and drove her straight home again!"

"Oh!" cried Doris, her cheeks red, her eyes aflame.

"Brutal, wasn't it?" said the other. "All the same, there are fine
things in Rachel. And in one point she's the most vulnerable of women!"

"Her son?" Doris ventured.

Miss Field shrugged her shoulders.

"He doesn't drink--he doesn't gamble--he doesn't spend money--he doesn't
run away with other people's wives. He's just nothing!--just incurably
empty and idle. He comes here very little. His mother terrifies him. And
since he was twenty-one he has a little money of his own. He hangs about
in studios and theatres. His mother doesn't know any of his friends.
What she suffers--poor Rachel! She'd have given everything in the world
for a brilliant son. But you can't wonder. She's like some strong plant
that takes all the nourishment out of the ground, so that the plants
near it starve. She can't help it. She doesn't mean to be a vampire!"

Doris hardly knew what to say. Somehow she wished the vampire were not