moorland, worth some three or four thousand a year, and the house was
perched on a beautiful promontory, running out into the sea, and
inclosing one side of a bay, where a small fishing-village had
recently expanded into a quiet watering-place, esteemed by some for
its remoteness from railways, and for the calm and simplicity that
were yearly diminished by its increasing popularity. It was the
family fashion to look down from their crag at the new esplanade with
pity and contempt for the ruined loneliness of the pebbly beach; and
as Mrs. Curtis had not health to go often into society, she had been
the more careful where she trusted her daughters. They belonged to
the county by birth and tradition, and were not to be mixed up with
the fleeting residents of the watering-place, on whom they never
called, unless by special recommendation from a mutual friend; and
the few permanent inhabitants chanced to be such, that a visit to
them was in some degree a condescension. Perhaps there was more of
timidity and caution than of pride in the mother's exclusiveness, and
Grace had always acquiesced in it as the natural and established
state of affairs, without any sense of superiority, but rather of
being protected. She had a few alarms as to the results of Rachel's
new immunities of age, and though never questioning the wisdom of her
clever sister's conclusions, dreaded the effect on the mother, whom
she had been forbidden to call mamma. "At their age it was affecting
an interesting childishness."

Rachel had had the palm of cleverness conceded to her ever since she
could recollect, when she read better at three years old than her
sister at five, and ever after, through the days of education, had
enjoyed, and excelled in, the studies that were a toil to Grace.
Subsequently, while Grace had contented herself with the ordinary
course of unambitious feminine life, Rachel had thrown herself into