Surrounded by so generous a suggestion of
hospitality and plenty, with the sun low in the west, the spirits of the
travellers rose, and Rachael thought with more composure upon the
morrow's encounter with her elder sisters. She knew them very slightly,
their husbands less. When her connection with Hamilton began,
correspondence between them had ceased; but like others they had
accepted the relation, and for the last three years Hamilton had been a
welcome guest at their houses when business took him to St. Croix. Mrs.
Lytton had been the first to whom he had confided his impending failure,
and she, remembering her mother's last letter and profoundly pitying the
young sister who seemed marked for misfortune, had persuaded her husband
to offer Hamilton the management of his grazing estates on the eastern
end of the Island. She wrote to Rachael, assuring her of welcome, and
reminding her that her story was unknown on St. Croix, that she would be
accepted without question as Hamilton's wife and their sister. But
Rachael knew that the truth would come out as soon as they had attracted
the attention of their neighbours, and she had seen enough of the world
to be sure that what people tolerated in the wealthy they censured in
the unimportant.
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