"It is uphill work with Elizabeth," said her grandfather. "She cares for none of us here."

"The harder to win the more constant to keep," replied the aspirant suitor cheerfully.

"I shall put no pressure on her. Here is your opportunity, and you must rely on yourself. She has a heart for those who can reach it, but my efforts have fallen short thus far." This was not what the squire had once thought to say.

Mr. Cecil Burleigh did not admire gushing, demonstrative women, and a gushing wife would have wearied him inexpressibly. He felt an attraction in Bessie's aloofness, and said again, "She is worth the pains she will cost to win: a few years will mature her fine intelligence and make of her a perfect companion. I admire her courageous simplicity; there is a great deal in her character to work upon."

"She is no cipher, certainly; if you are satisfied, I am," said Mr. Fairfax resignedly. "Yet it is not flattering to think that she would toss up her cap to go back to the Forest to-morrow."

"Then she is loyal in affection to very worthy people. I have heard of her Forest friends from Lady Latimer."

"Lady Latimer has a great hold on Elizabeth's imagination. It would be a good thing if she were to pay a visit to Hartwell; she might give her young devotee some valuable instructions. Elizabeth is prejudiced against me, and does not fall into her new condition so happily as I was led to anticipate that she might."

"She will wear to it. My sister Mary has an art of taming, and will help her. I prefer her indifference to an undue elation: that would argue a commonness of mind from which I imagine her to be quite free."

"She has her own way of estimating us, and treats the state and luxury of Abbotsmead as quite external to her. In her private thoughts, I fear, she treats them as cumbrous lendings that she will throw off after a season, and be gladly quit of their burden."

"Better so than in the other extreme. A girl of heart and mind cannot be expected to identify herself suddenly with the customs of a strange rank. She was early trained in the habits of a simple household, but from what I see there can have been nothing wanting of essential refinement in Mrs. Carnegie. There is a crudeness in Miss Fairfax yet—she is very young—but she will ripen sound and sweet to the core, or I am much mistaken in the quality of the green fruit."

The squire replied that he had no reason to believe his granddaughter was otherwise than a good girl. And with that they left discussing her and fell upon the election. Mr. Cecil Burleigh had a good courage for the encounter, but he also had received intimations not to make too sure of his success. The Fairfax influence had been so long in abeyance, so long only a name in Norminster, that Mr. John Short began to quake the moment he began to test it. Once upon a time Norminster had returned a Fairfax as a matter of course, but for a generation its tendencies had been more and more towards Liberalism, and at the last election it had returned its old Whig member at the head of the poll, and in lieu of its old Tory member a native lawyer, one Bradley, who professed Radicalism on the hustings, but pruned his opinions in the House to the useful working pattern of a supporter of the ministry. This prudent gentleman was considered by a majority of his constituents not to have played fair, and it was as against him, traitor and turncoat, that the old Tories and moderate Conservatives were going to try to bring in Mr. Cecil Burleigh. Both sides were prepared to spend money, and Norminster was enjoying lively anticipations of a good time coming.

While the gentlemen were thus discoursing to and fro the terrace under the library window, Miss Burleigh in Bessie's parlor was instructing her of her brother's political views. It is to be feared that Bessie was less interested than the subject deserved, and also less interested in the proprietor of the said views than his sister supposed her to be. She listened respectfully, however, and did not answer very much at random, considering that she was totally ignorant beforehand of all that was being explained to her. At length she said, "I must begin to read the newspapers. I know much better what happened in the days of Queen Elizabeth than what has happened in my own lifetime;" and then Miss Burleigh left politics, and began to speak of her brother's personal ambition and personal qualities; to relate anecdotes of his signal success at Eton and at Oxford; to expatiate on her own devotion to him, and the great expectations founded by all his family upon his high character and splendid abilities. She added that he had the finest temper in the world, and that he was ardently affectionate.

Bessie smiled at this. She believed that she knew where his ardent affections were centred; and then she blushed at the tormenting recollection of how she had interpreted his assiduities to herself before making that discovery. Miss Burleigh saw the blush, seeming to see nothing, and said softly, "I envy the woman who has to pass her life with Cecil. I can imagine nothing more contenting than his society to one he loves."

Bessie's blush was perpetuated. She would have liked to mention Miss Julia Gardiner, but she felt a restraining delicacy in speaking of what had come to her knowledge in such a casual way, and more than ever ashamed of her own ridiculous mistake. Suddenly she broke out with an odd query, at the same moment clapping her hands to her traitorous cheeks: "Do you ever blush at your own foolish fancies? Oh, how tiresome it is to have a trick of blushing! I wish I could get over it."

"It is a trick we get over quite early enough. The fancies girls blush at are so innocent. I have had none of that pretty sort for a long while."

Miss Burleigh looked sympathetic and amused. Bessie was silent for a few minutes and full of thought. Presently, in a musing, meditative voice, she said, "Ambition! I suppose all men who have force enough to do great things long for an opportunity to do them; and that we call ambition. Harry Musgrave is ambitious. He is going to be a lawyer. What can a famous lawyer become?"

"Lord chancellor, the highest civil dignity under the Crown."

"Then I shall set my mind on seeing Harry lord chancellor," cried Bessie with bold conclusion.

"And when he retires from office, though he may have held it for ever so short a time, he will have a pension of five thousand a year."

"How pleasant! What a grateful country! Then he will be able to buy Brook and spend his holidays there. Dear old Harry! We were like brother and sister once, and I feel as if I had a right to be proud of him, as you are of your brother Cecil. Women have no chance of being ambitious on their own account, have they?"

"Oh yes. Women are as ambitious of rank, riches, and power as men are; and some are ambitious of doing what they imagine to be great deeds. You will probably meet one at Brentwood, a most beautiful lady she is—a Mrs. Chiverton."

Bessie's countenance flashed: "She was a Miss Hiloe, was she not—Ada Hiloe? I knew her. She was at Madame Fournier's—she and a younger sister—during my first year there."

"Then you will be glad to meet again. She was married in Paris only the other day, and has come into Woldshire a bride. They say she is showing herself a prodigy of benevolence round her husband's magnificent seat already: she married him that she might have the power to do good with his immense wealth. There must always be some self-sacrifice in a lofty ambition, but hers is a sacrifice that few women could endure to pay."

Bessie held her peace. She had been instructed how all but impossible it is to live in the world and be absolutely truthful; and what perplexed her in this new character of her old school-fellow she therefore supposed to be the veil of glamour which the world requires to have thrown over an ugly, naked truth.

About eleven o'clock the two young ladies walked out across the park towards the lodge, to pay a visit to Mrs. Stokes. Then they walked on to the village, and home again by the mill. The morning seemed long drawn out. Then followed luncheon, and after it Mr. Cecil Burleigh drove in an open carriage with Bessie and his sister to Hartwell. The afternoon was very clear and pleasant, and the scenery sufficiently varied. On the road Bessie learnt that Hartwell was the early home of Lady Latimer, and still the residence of her bachelor brother and two maiden sisters.

The very name of Lady Latimer acted like a spell on Bessie. She had been rather silent and reserved until she heard it, and then all at once she roused up into a vivid interest. Mr. Cecil Burleigh studied her more attentively than he had done hitherto. Miss Burleigh said, "Lady Latimer is another of our ambitious women. Miss Fairfax fancies women can have no ambition on their own account, Cecil. I have been telling her of Mrs. Chiverton."

"And what does Miss Fairfax say of Mrs. Chiverton's ambition?" asked Mr. Cecil Burleigh.

"Nothing," rejoined Bessie. But her delicate lip and nostril expressed a great deal.

The man of the world preferred her reticence to the wisest speech. He mused for several minutes before he spoke again himself. Then he gave air to some of his reflections: "Lady Latimer has great qualities. Her marriage was the blunder of her youth. Her girlish imagination was dazzled by the name of a lord and the splendor of Umpleby. It remains to be considered that she was not one of the melting sort, and that she made her life noble."

Here Miss Burleigh took up the story: "That is true. But she would have made it more noble if she had been faithful to her first love—to your grandfather, Miss Fairfax."

Bessie colored. "Oh, were they fond of each other when they were young?" she asked wondering.

"Your grandfather was devoted to her. He had just succeeded to Abbotsmead. All the world thought it would be a match, and great promotion for her too, when she met Lord Latimer. He was sixty and she was nineteen, and they lived together thirty-seven years, for he survived into quite extreme old age."

"And she had no children, and my grandfather married somebody else?" said Bessie with a plaintive fall in her voice.

"She had no children, and your grandfather married somebody else. Lady Latimer was a most excellent wife to her old tyrant."

Bessie looked sorrowful: "Was he a tyrant? I wonder whether she ever pities herself for the love she threw away? She is quite alone—she would give anything that people should love her now, I have heard them say in the Forest."

"That is the revenge that slighted love so often takes. But she must have satisfaction in her life too. She was always more proud than tender, except perhaps to her friend, Dorothy Fairfax. You have heard of your great-aunt Dorothy?"

"Yes. I have succeeded to her rooms, to her books. My grandfather says I remind him of her."

"Dorothy Fairfax never forgave Lady Latimer. They had been familiar friends, and there was a double separation. Oh, it is quite a romance! My aunt, Lady Angleby, could tell you all about it, for she was quite one with them at Abbotsmead and Hartwell in those days; indeed, the intimacy has never been interrupted. And you know Lady Latimer—you admire her?"

"I used to admire her enthusiastically. I should like to see her again."

After this there was silence until the drive ended at Hartwell. Bessie was meditating on the glimpse she had got into the pathetic past of her grandfather's life, and Mr. Cecil Burleigh and his sister were meditating upon her.

Hartwell was a modest brick house within a garden skirting the road. It had a retired air, as of a poor gentleman's house whose slender fortunes limit his tastes: Mr. Oliver Smith's fortunes were very slender, and he shared them with two maiden sisters. The shrubs were well grown and the grass was well kept, but there was no show of the gorgeous scentless flowers which make the gardens of the wealthy so gay and splendid in summer. Ivy clothed the walls, and old-fashioned flowers bloomed all the year round in the borders, but it was not a very cheerful garden in the afternoon.

Two elderly ladies were pacing the lawn arm-in-arm, with straw hats tilted over their noses, when the Abbotsmead carriage stopped at the gate. They stood an instant to see whose it was, and then hurried forward to welcome their visitors.

"This is very kind, Mr. Cecil, very kind, Miss Mary; but you always are kind in remembering old friends," said the elder, Miss Juliana, and then was silent, gazing at Bessie.

"This is Miss Fairfax," said Mr. Cecil Burleigh. "Lady Latimer has no doubt named her in her letters."

"Ah! yes, yes—what am I dreaming about? Charlotte," turning to her sister, "who is she like?"

"She is like poor Dorothy," was the answer in a tremulous, solemn voice. "What will Oliver say?"

"How long is it since Lady Latimer saw you, my dear?" asked Miss Juliana.

"Three years. I have not been home to the Forest since I left it to go to school in France."

"Ah! Then that accounts for our sister not having mentioned to us your wonderful resemblance to your great-aunt, Dorothy Fairfax. Three years alter and refine a child's chubby face into a young woman's face."

Miss Juliana seemed to be thrown into irretrievable confusion by Bessie's apparition and her own memory. She was quite silent as she led the way to the house, walking between Mr. Cecil Burleigh and his sister. Miss Charlotte walked behind with Bessie, and remarked that she was pleased to have a link of acquaintance with her already by means of Lady Latimer. Bessie asked whether Lady Latimer was likely soon to come into Woldshire.

"We have not heard that she has any present intention of visiting us. Her visits are few and far between," was the formal reply.

"I wish she would. When I was a little girl she was my ideal of all that is grand, gracious, and lovely," said Bessie.

Bessie's little outbreak had done her good, had set her tongue at liberty. Her self-consciousness was growing less obtrusive. Mr. Cecil Burleigh explained to her the legal process of an election for a member of Parliament, and Miss Burleigh sat by in satisfied silence, observing the quick intelligence of her face and the flattered interest in her brother's. At the park gates, Mr. Fairfax, returning from a visit to one of his farmsteads where building was in progress, met the carriage and got in. His first question was what Mr. Oliver Smith had said about the coming election, and whether he would be in Norminster the following day.

The news about Buller troubled him no little, to judge by his countenance, but he did not say much beyond an exclamation that they would carry the contest through, let it cost what it might. "We have been looking forward to this contest ever since Bradley was returned five years ago; we will not be so faint-hearted as to yield without a battle. If we are defeated again, we may count Norminster lost to the Conservative interest."

"Oh, don't talk of defeat! We shall be far more likely to win if we refuse to contemplate the possibility of defeat," cried Bessie with girlish vivacity.

Mr. Cecil Burleigh laughed and said, "Miss Fairfax is right. She will wear my colors and I will adopt her logic, and, ostrich-like, refuse to see the perils that threaten me."

"No, no," remonstrated Bessie casting off her shy reserve under encouragement. "So far from hiding your face, you must make it familiar in every street in Norminster. You must seek if you would find, and ask if you would have. I would. I should hate to be beaten by my own neglect, worse than by my rival."

Mr. Fairfax was electrified at this brusque assertion of her sentiments by his granddaughter. Her audacity seemed at least equal to her shyness. "Very good advice, Elizabeth; make him follow it," said he dryly.

"We will give him no rest when we have him at Brentwood," added Miss Burleigh. "But though he is so cool about it, I believe he is dreadfully in earnest. Are you not, Cecil?"

"I will not be beaten by my own neglect," was his rejoinder, with a glance at Bessie, blushing beautifully.

They did not relapse into constraint any more that day. There was no addition to the company at dinner, and the evening being genially warm, they enjoyed it in the garden. Mr. Cecil Burleigh and Miss Fairfax even strolled as far as the ruins in the park, and on the way he enlightened her respecting some of his opinions, tastes, and prejudices. She heard him attentively, and found him very instructive. His clever conversation was a compliment to which, as a bright girl, she was not insensible. His sister had detailed to him her behavior on her introduction to Lady Angleby, and had deplored her lively sense of the ridiculous. Miss Burleigh had the art of taming that her brother credited her with, and Elizabeth was already at ease and happy with her—free to be herself, as she felt, and not always on guard and measuring her words; and the more of her character that she revealed, the better Miss Burleigh liked her. Her gayety of temper was very attractive when it was kept within due bounds, and she had a most sweet docility of tractableness when approached with caution. At the close of the evening she retired to her white parlor with a rather exalted feeling of responsibility, having promised, at Mr. Cecil Burleigh's instigation, to study certain essays of Lord Bacon on government and seditions in states for the informing of her mind. She took the volume down from Dorothy Fairfax's bookshelf, and laid it on her table for a reminder. Miss Burleigh saw it there in the morning.

"Ah, dear Cecil! He will try to make you very wise and learned," said she, nodding her head and smiling significantly. "But never mind: he waltzes to perfection, and delights in a ball, no man more."

"Does he?" cried Bessie, amused and laughing. "That potent, grave, and reverend signor can condescend, then, to frivolities! Oh, when shall we have a ball that I may waltz with him?"

"Soon, if all go successfully at the election. Lady Angleby will give a ball if Cecil win and you ask her."

"I ask her! But I should never dare."

"She will be only too glad of the opportunity, and you may dare anything with her when she is pleased. She has always been dear Cecil's fast friend, and his triumph will be hers. She will want to celebrate it joyously, and nothing is really so joyous as a good dance. We will have a good dance."



CHAPTER XXIII.

BESSIE SHOWS CHARACTER.

At breakfast, Mr. Fairfax handed a letter to Bessie. "From home, from my mother," said she in a glad undertone, and instantly, without apology, opened and read it. Mr. Cecil Burleigh took a furtive observation of her while she was thus occupied. What a good countenance she had! how the slight emotion of her lips and the lustrous shining under her dark eyelashes enhanced her beauty! It was a letter to make her happy, to give her a light heart to go to Brentwood with. Mrs. Carnegie was always sympathetic, cheerful, and loving in her letters. She encouraged her dear Bessie to reconcile herself to absence, and attach herself to her new home by cultivating all its sources of interest, and especially the affection of her grandfather. She gave her much tender, reasonable advice for her guidance, and she gave her good news: they were all well at home and at Brook, and Harry Musgrave had come out in honors at Oxford. The sunshine of pure content irradiated Bessie's face. She looked up; she wanted to communicate her joy. Her grandfather looked up at the same moment, and their eyes met.

"Would you like to read it? It is from my mother," she said, holding out the letter with an impulse to be good to him.

"I can trust you with your correspondence, Elizabeth," was his reply.

She drew back her hand quickly, and laid down the letter by her plate. She sipped her tea, her throat aching, her eyes swimming. The squire began to talk rather fast and loud, and in a few minutes, the meal being over, he pushed away his chair and left the room.

"The train we go into Norminster by reaches Mitford Junction at ten thirty-five," observed Mr. Cecil Burleigh.

Bessie rose and vanished with a mutinous air, which made him laugh and whisper to his sister, as she disappeared, that the young lady had a rare spirit. Mr. Fairfax was in the hall. She went swiftly up to him, and laying a hand on his arm, said, in a quivering, resolute voice, "Read my letter, grandpapa. If you will not recognize those I have the best right to love, we shall be strangers always, you and I."

"Come up stairs: I will read your letter," said the old man shortly, and he mounted to her parlor, she still keeping her hold on his arm. He stood at her table and read it, and laid it down without a word, but, glancing aside at her pleasing face, he was moved to kiss her, and then promptly effected his escape from her tyranny. He was not displeased, and Bessie was triumphant.

"Now we can begin to be friends," she cried softly, clapping her hands. "I refuse to be frightened. I shall always tell him my news, and make him listen. If he is sarcastic, I won't care. He will respect me if I assert my right to be respected, and maintain that my father and mother at Beechhurst have the first and best claim on my love. He shall not recognize them as belonging only to my past life; he shall acknowledge them as belonging to me always. And Harry too!"

These strong resolutions arising out of that letter from the Forest exhilarated Bessie exceedingly. There was perhaps more guile in her than was manifest on slight acquaintance, but it was the guile of a wise, warm heart. All trace of emotion had passed away when she came down stairs, and when her grandfather, assisting her into the carriage, squeezed her fingers confidentially, her new, all-pervading sense of happiness was confirmed and established. And the courage that happiness inspires was hers too.

At Mitford Junction, Colonel and Mrs. Stokes and Mr. Oliver Smith joined their party, and they travelled to Norminster together. The old city was going quietly about its business much as usual when they drove through the streets to the "George," where Mr. Cecil Burleigh was to meet his committee and address the electors out of the big middle bow-window. Miss Jocund's shop was nearly opposite to the inn, and thither the ladies at once adjourned, that Bessie might assume her blue bonnet. The others were already handsomely provided. Miss Jocund was quite at liberty to attend to them at this early hour of the day—her "gentleman" had not come in yet—and she conducted them to her show-room over the shop with the complacent alacrity of a milliner confident that she is about to give supreme satisfaction. And indeed Mrs. Stokes cried out with rapture, the instant the bonnet filled her eye, that it was "A sweet little bonnet—blue crape and white marabouts!"

Bessie smiled most becomingly as it was tried on, and blushed at herself in the glass. "But a shower of rain will spoil it," she objected, nodding the downy white feathers that topped the brim. She was proceeding philosophically to tie the glossy broad strings in a bow under her round chin when Miss Jocund stepped hastily to the rescue, and Mrs. Betts entered with a curtsey, and a blue silk slip on her arm. "What next?" Bessie demanded of the waiting-woman in rosy consternation.

"I am afraid we must trouble you, Miss Fairfax, but not much, I hope," insinuated Miss Jocund with a queer, deprecating humility. "There is a good half hour to spare. Since Eve put on a little cool foliage, female dress has developed so extensively that it is necessary to try some ladies on six times to avoid a misfit. But your figure is perfectly proportioned, and I resolved, for once, to chance it on my knowledge of anatomy, supplemented by an embroidered dress from your wardrobe. If you will be so kind: a stitch here and a stitch there, and my delightful duty is accomplished."

Miss Jocund's speeches had always a touch of mockery, and Bessie, being in excellent spirits, laughed good-humoredly, but denied her request. "No, no," said she, "I will not be so kind. Your lovely blue bonnet would be thrown away if I did not look pleasant under it, and how could I look pleasant after the painful ordeal of trying on?"

Mrs. Stokes, with raised eyebrows, was about to remonstrate, Mrs. Betts, with flushed dismay, was about to argue, when Miss Jocund interposed; she entered into the young lady's sentiments: "Miss Fairfax has spoken, and Miss Fairfax is right. A pleasant look is the glory of a woman's face, and without a pleasant look, if I were a single gentleman a woman might wear a coal-scuttle for me."

At this crisis there occurred a scuffle and commotion on the stairs, and Bessie recognized a voice she had heard elsewhere—a loud, ineffectual voice—pleading, "Master Justus, Master Justus, you are not to go to your granny in the show-room;" and in Master Justus bounced—lovely, delicious, in the whitest of frilly pinafores and most boisterous of naughty humors.

Bessie Fairfax stooped down and opened her arms with rapturous invitation. "Come, oh, you bonnie boy!" and she caught him up, shook him, kissed him, tickled him, with an exuberant fun that he evidently shared, and frantically retaliated by pulling down her hair.

This was very agreeable to Bessie, but Miss Jocund looked like an angry sphinx, and as the defeated nurse appeared she said with suppressed excitement, "Sally, how often must I warn you to keep the boy out of the show-room? Carry him away." The flaxen cherub was born off kicking and howling; Bessie looked as if she were being punished herself, Mrs. Stokes stood confounded, Mrs. Betts turned red. Only Miss Burleigh seemed unaffected, and inquired simply whose that little boy was. "Mine, ma'am," replied the milliner with an emphasis that forbade further question. But Miss Burleigh's reflective powers were awakened.

Mrs. Betts, that woman of resources and experience, standing with the blue silk slip half dropt on the Scotch carpet at her feet, reverted to the interrupted business of the hour as if there had been no break. "And if, when it comes to dressing this evening at Lady Angleby's, there's not a thing that fits?" she bitterly suggested.

"I will answer for it that everything fits," said Miss Jocund, recovering herself with more effort. "I have worked on true principles. But"—with a persuasive inclination towards Bessie—"if Miss Fairfax will condescend to inspect my productions, she will gratify me and herself also."

As she spoke Miss Jocund threw open the door of an adjoining room, where the said productions were elaborately laid out, and Mrs. Stokes ran in to have the first view. Miss Burleigh followed. Bessie, with a rather unworthy distrust, refused to advance beyond the doorway; but, looking in, she beheld clouds upon clouds of blue and white puffery, tulle and tarletan, and shining breadths of silk of the same delicate hues, with fans, gloves, bows, wreaths, shoes, ribbons, sashes, laces—a portentous confusion. After a few seconds of disturbed contemplation, during which she was lending an ear to the remote shrieks of that darling boy, she said—and surely it was provoking!—"The half would be better than the whole. I am sorry for you, Mrs. Betts, if you are to have all those works of art on your mind till they are worn out."

"Indeed, miss, if you don't show more feeling, my mind will give way," retorted Mrs. Betts. "It is the first time in my long experience that ever a young lady so set me at defiance as to refuse to try on new dresses. And all one's credit at stake upon her appearance! In a great house like Brentwood, too!"

Those piercing cries continued to rise higher and higher. Miss Jocund, with a vexed exclamation, dropped some piece of finery on which she was beginning to dilate, and vanished by another door. In a minute the noise was redoubled with a passionate intensity. Bessie's eyes filled; she knew that old-fashioned discipline was being administered, and her heart ached dreadfully. She even offered to rush to the rescue, but Mrs. Betts intercepted her with a stern "Better let me do up your hair, miss," while Mrs. Stokes, moved by sympathetic tenderness, whispered, "Stop your ears; it is necessary, quite necessary, now and then, I assure you." Oh, did not Bessie know? had she not little brothers? When there was silence, Miss Jocund returned, and without allusion to the nursery tragedy resumed her task of displaying the fruits of her toils.

Bessie, with a yearning sigh, composed herself, laid hands on her blue bonnet while nobody was observing, and moved away to an open window in the show-room that commanded the street. Deliberately she tied the strings in the fashion that pleased her, and seated herself to look out where a few men and boys were collecting on the edge of the pavement to await the appearance of the Conservative candidate at the bow-window over the portico of the "George." Presently, Mrs. Stokes joined her, shaking her head, and saying with demure rebuke, "You naughty girl! And this is all you care for pretty things?" Miss Burleigh, with more real seriousness, hoped that the pretty things would be right. Miss Jocund came forward with a natural professional anxiety to hear their opinions, and when she saw the bonnet-strings tied clasped her hands in acute regret, but said nothing. Mrs. Betts, a picture of injured virtue, held herself aloof beyond the sea of finery, gazing across it at her insensible young mistress with eyes of mournful indignation. Bessie felt herself the object of general misunderstanding and reproach, and was stirred up to extenuate her untoward behavior in a strain of mischievous sarcasm.

"Don't look so distressed, all of you," she pleaded. "How can I interest myself to-day in anything but Mr. Cecil Burleigh's address to the electors of Norminster and my own new bonnet?"

"That is very becoming, for a consolation," said the milliner with an affronted air.

"I think it is," rejoined Bessie coolly. "And if you will not bedizen me with artificial flowers, and will exonerate me from wearing dresses that crackle, I shall be happy. Did you not promise to give me simplicity and no imitations, Miss Jocund?"

"I cannot deny it, Miss Fairfax. Natural leaves and flowers are my taste, and graceful soft outlines of drapery; but when it is the mode to wear tall wreaths of painted calico, and to be bustled off in twenty yards of stiff, cheap tarletan, most ladies conform to the mode, on the axiom that they might as well be out of the world as out of the fashion. And nothing comes up so ugly and outrageous but there are some who will have it in the very extreme."

"I am quite aware of the pains many women take to be displeasing, but I thought you understood that was not 'my style, my taste,'" said Bessie, quoting the milliner's curt query at their first interview.

"I understand now, Miss Fairfax, that there are things here you would rather be without. I will not pack up the tarletan skirts and artificial flowers. With the two morning silks and two dinner silks, and the tulle over the blue slip for a possible dance, perhaps you will be able to go through your visit to Brentwood?"

"I trust so," said Bessie. "But if I need anything more I will write to you."

There was an odd pause of silence, in which Bessie looked out of the window, and the rest looked at one another with a furtive, defeated, amused acknowledgment that this young lady, so ignorant of the world, knew how to take her own part, and would not be controlled in the exercise of her senses by any irregular, usurped authority. Mrs. Betts saw her day-dream of perquisites vanish. Both she and Miss Jocund had got their lesson, and they remembered it.

A welcome interruption came with the sound of swift wheels and high-stepping horses in the street, and the ladies pressed forward to see. "Lady Angleby's carriage," said Miss Burleigh as it whirled past and drew up at the "George." She was now in haste to be gone and join her aunt, but Bessie lingered at the window to witness the great lady's reception by the gentlemen who came out of the inn to meet her. Mr. Cecil Burleigh was foremost, and Mr. Fairfax, Mr. Oliver Smith, Mr. Forbes, and several more, yet strangers to Bessie, supported him. One who bowed with extreme deference she recognized, at a second glance, as Mr. John Short, her grandfather's companion on his memorable visit to Beechhurst, which resulted in her severance from that dear home of her childhood. The sight of him brought back some vexed recollections, but she sighed and shook them off, and on Miss Burleigh's again inviting her to come away to the "George" to Lady Angleby, she rose and followed her.

"Look pleasant," said Miss Jocund, standing by the door as Bessie went out, and Bessie laughed and was obedient.



CHAPTER XXIV.

A QUIET POLICY.

Lady Angleby received Bessie Fairfax with a gracious affability, and if Bessie had desired to avail herself of the privilege there was a cheek offered her to kiss, but she did not appear to see it. Her mind was running on that boy, and her countenance was blithe as sunshine. Mr. Laurence Fairfax came forward to shake hands, and Mr. John Short respectfully claimed her acquaintance. They were in a smaller room, adjoining the committee-room, where the majority of the gentlemen had assembled, and Bessie said to Miss Burleigh, "We should see and hear better in Miss Jocund's window;" but Miss Burleigh showed her that Miss Jocund's window was already filled, and that the gathering on the pavement was increasing. Soon after twelve it increased fast, with the workmen halting during a few minutes of their hour's release for dinner, but it never became a crowd, and the affair was much flatter than Bessie had expected. The new candidate was introduced by Mr. Oliver Smith, who spoke very briefly, and then made way for the candidate himself. Bessie could not see Mr. Cecil Burleigh, nor hear his words, but she observed that he was listened to, and jeeringly questioned only twice, and on both occasions his answer was received with cheers.

"You will read his speech in the Norminster Gazette on Saturday, or he will tell you the substance of it," Miss Burleigh said. "Extremes meet in politics as in other things, and much of Cecil's creed will suit the root-and-branch men as well as the fanatics of his own party." Bessie wondered a little, but said nothing; she had thought moderation Mr. Cecil Burleigh's characteristic.

A school of young ladies passed without difficulty behind the scanty throng, and five minutes after the speaking was over the street was empty.

"Buller was not there," said Mr. John Short to Mr. Oliver Smith, and from the absence of mirth amongst the gentlemen, Bessie conjectured that there was a general sense of failure and disappointment.

Mr. Cecil Burleigh preserved his dignified composure, and came up to Bessie, who said, "This is only the beginning?"

"Only the beginning—the real work is all to do," said he, and entered into a low-toned exposition thereof quite calmly.

It was at this moment that Mr. John Short, happening to cast an eye upon the two, received one of those happy inspirations that visit in emergency men of superior resources and varied experience. At Lady Angleby's behest the pretty ladies in blue bonnets set out to shop, pay calls in the town, and show their colors, and the agent attached himself to the party. They all left the "George" together, but it was not long before they divided, and Mr. Cecil Burleigh and Bessie, having nowhere particular where they wished to go, wandered towards the minster. Mr. John Short, without considering whether his company might be acceptable, adhered to them, and at length boldly suggested that they were not far from the thoroughfare in which the "Red Lion" was situated, and that a word from the aspirant candidate to Buller might not be thrown away.

It was the hour of the afternoon when the host of the "Red Lion" sat at the receipt of news and custom, smoking his pipe after dinner in the shade of an old elm tree by his own door. He was a burly man, with a becoming sense of his importance and weight in the world, and as honest a desire to do his share in mending it as his betters. He was not to be bought by any of the usual methods of electioneering sale and barter, but he had a soft place in his heart that Mr. John Short knew of, and was not therefore to be relinquished as altogether invulnerable.

Mr. Cecil Burleigh could not affect the jocose and familiar, but perhaps his plain way of address was a higher compliment to the publican's understanding. "Is it true, Buller, that you balance about voting again for Bradley? Think of it, and see if you cannot return to the old flag," was all he said.

"Sir, I mean to think of it," replied Buller with equal directness. "I'm pleased with what I hear of you, and I like a gentleman, but Bradley explains his puzzling conduct very plausibly: it is no use being factious and hindering business in the House, as he says. And it can't be denied that there's Tory members in the House as factious as any of them pestilent Radical chaps that get up strikes out of doors. I'm not saying that you would be one of them, sir."

"I hope not. For no party considerations would I hinder any advance or reform that I believe to be for the good of the country."

"I am glad to hear it, sir; you would be what we call an independent member. My opinion is, sir, that sound progress feels its way and takes one step at a time, and if it tries to go too fast it overleaps itself."

Mr. Cecil Burleigh was not prepared for political disquisition on the pavement in front of the "Red Lion," but he pondered an instant on Mr. Buller's platitude as if it were a new revelation, and then said with quiet cordiality, "Well, think of it, and if you decide to give me your support, it will be the more valuable as being given on conviction. Good-day to you, Buller."

The publican had risen, and laid aside his pipe. "Good-day to you, sir," said he, and as Bessie inclined her fair head to him also, he bowed with more confusion and pleasure than could have been expected from the host of a popular tavern.

Mr. John Short lingered behind, and as the beautiful young people retired out of hearing, admiringly watched by the publican, the lawyer plied his insinuating craft and whispered, "You are always a good-natured man, Buller. Look at those two—No election, no wedding."

"You don't say so!" ejaculated Buller with kindly sympathy in his voice. "A pretty pair, indeed, to run in a curricle! I should think now his word's as good as his bond—eh? Egad, then, I'll give 'em a plumper!"

The agent shook hands with him on it delighted. "You are a man of your word too, Buller. I thank you," he said with fervor, and felt that this form of bribery and corruption had many excuses besides its success. He did not intend to divulge by what means the innkeeper's pledge had been obtained, lest his chief might not quite like it, and with a few nods, becks, and half-words he ensured Buller's silence on the delicate family arrangement that he had so prematurely confided to his ear. And then he went back to the "George" with the approving conscience of an agent who has done his master good secret service without risking any impeachment of his honor. He fully expected that time would make his words true. Unless in that confidence, Mr. Short was not the man to have spoken them, even to win an election.

Mr. Cecil Burleigh and Miss Fairfax strolled a little farther, and then retraced their steps to the minster, and went in to hear the anthem. Presently appeared in the distance Mr. Fairfax and Miss Burleigh, and when the music was over signed to them to come away. Lady Angleby was waiting in the carriage at the great south door to take them home, and in the beautiful light of the declining afternoon they drove out of the town to Brentwood—a big, square, convenient old house, surrounded by a pleasant garden divided from the high-road by a belt of trees.

Mrs. Betts was already installed in the chamber allotted to her young lady, and had spread out the pretty new clothes she was to wear. She was deeply serious, and not disposed to say much after her morning's lesson. Bessie had apparently dismissed the recollection of it. She came in all good-humor and cheerfulness. She hummed a soft little tune, and for the first time submitted patiently to the assiduities of the experienced waiting-woman. Mrs. Betts did not fail to make her own reflections thereupon, and to interpret favorably Miss Fairfax's evidently happy preoccupation.



CHAPTER XXV.

A DINNER AT BRENTWOOD.

There was rejoicing at Brentwood that evening. All the guests staying in the house were assembled in the drawing-room before dinner, when Mr. Oliver Smith, who had retained quarters at the "George," walked in with an appearance of high satisfaction, and immediately began to say, "I bring you good news. Buller has made up his mind to do the right thing, Burleigh, and give you a plumper. He hailed my cab as I was passing the 'Red Lion' on my road here, and told me his decision. Do you carry witchcraft about with you?"

"Buller could not resist the old name and the old colors. Miss Fairfax is my witchcraft," said Mr. Cecil Burleigh with a profound bow to Bessie, in gay acknowledgment of her unconscious services.

Bessie blushed with pleasure, and said, "Indeed, I never opened my mouth."

"Oh, charms work in silence," said Mr. Oliver Smith.

Lady Angleby was delighted; Mr. Fairfax looked gratified, and gave his granddaughter an approving nod.

The next and last arrivals were Mr. and Mrs. Chiverton. Mr. Chiverton was known to all present, but the bride was a stranger except to one or two. She was attired in rich white silk—in full dress—so terribly trying to the majority of women, and Bessie Fairfax's first thought on seeing her again was how much less beautiful she was than in her simple percale dresses at school. She did not notice Bessie at once, but when their eyes met and Bessie smiled, she ran to embrace her with expansive cordiality. Bessie, her beaming comeliness notwithstanding, could assume in an instant a touch-me-not air, and gave her hand only, though that with a kind frankness; and then they sat down and talked of Caen.

Mrs. Chiverton's report as a woman of extraordinary beauty and virtue had preceded her into her husband's country, but to the general observer Miss Fairfax was much more pleasing. She also wore full dress—white relieved with blue—but she was also able to wear it with a grace; for her arms were lovely, and all her contours fair, rounded, and dimpled, while Mrs. Chiverton's tall frame, though very stately, was very bony, and her little head and pale, classical face, her brown hair not abundant, and eyes too cold and close together, with that expression of intense pride which is a character in itself, required a taste cultivated amidst statuary to appreciate. This taste Mr. Chiverton possessed, and his wife satisfied it perfectly.

Bessie looked at Mr. Chiverton with curiosity, and looked quickly away again, retaining an impression of a cur-like face with a fixed sneer upon it. He was not engaged in conversation at the time; he was contemplating his handsome wife with critical admiration, as he might have contemplated a new acquisition in his gallery of antique marbles. In his eyes the little girl beside her was a mere golden-haired, rosy, plump rustic, who served as a foil to his wife's Minerva-like beauty.

Lady Angleby was great lady enough to have her own by-laws of etiquette in her own house, and her nephew was assigned to take Miss Fairfax to dinner. They sat side by side, and were wonderfully sociable at one end of the table, with the hostess and Mr. Fairfax facing them at the other. Besides the guests already introduced, there was one other gentleman, very young—Sir Edward Lucas—whose privilege it was to escort Mrs. Chiverton. Mr. Forbes gave his arm to Miss Burleigh. Mr. Chiverton and Mr. Oliver Smith had no ladies: Lady Angleby liked a preponderance of gentlemen at her entertainments. Everybody talked and was pleasant, and Bessie Fairfax felt almost at ease, so fast does confidence grow in the warm atmosphere of courtesy and kindness. When the ladies retired to the drawing-room she was bidden to approach Lady Angleby's footstool, and treated caressingly; while Mrs. Chiverton was allowed to converse on philanthropic missions with Miss Burleigh, who yawned behind her fan and marvelled at the splendor of the bride's jewels.

In the dining-room conversation became more animated when the gentlemen were left to themselves. Mr. Chiverton loved to take the lead. He had said little during dinner, but now he began to talk with vivacity, and was heard with the attention that must be paid to an old man possessed of enormous wealth and the centre of great connexions. He was accustomed to this deference, and cared perhaps for none other. He had a vast contempt for his fellow-creatures, and was himself almost universally detested. But he could bear it, sustained by the bitter tonic of his own numerous aversions. One chief aversion was present at this moment in the elegant person of Mr. Oliver Smith. Mr. Oliver Smith was called not too strong in the head, but he was good, and possessed the irresistible influence of goodness. Mr. Chiverton hated his mild tenacity. His own temper was purely despotic. He had represented a division of the county for several years, and had finally retired from Parliament in dudgeon at the success of the Liberal party and policy. After some general remarks on the approaching election, came up the problem of reconciling the quarrel between labor and capital, then already growing to such proportions that the whole community, alarmed, foresaw that it might have ere long to suffer with the disputants. The immediate cause of the reference was the fact of a great landowner named Gifford having asked for soldiers from Norminster to aid his farmers in gathering in the harvest, which was both early and abundant. The request had been granted. The dearth of labor on his estates arose from various causes, but primarily from there not being cottages enough to house the laborers, his father and he having both pursued the policy of driving them to a distance to keep down the rates.

"The penuriousness of rich men is a constant surprise to me," said Mr. Forbes. "Dunghill cottages are not so frequent as they were, but there are still a vast number too many. When old Gifford made a solitude round him, Blagg built those reed-thatched hovels at Morte which contribute more poor rogues to the quarter sessions than all the surrounding parishes. That strip of debatable land is the seedbed of crime and misery: the laborers take refuge in the hamlet, and herd together as animals left to their own choice never do herd; but their walk to and from their work is shortened by one half, and they have their excuse. We should probably do the same ourselves."

"The cottages of the small proprietors are always the worst," remarked Mr. Chiverton.

"If you and Gifford would combine to rebuild the houses you have allowed to decay or have pulled down, Morte would soon be left to the owls and the bats," said the clergyman. "By far the larger majority of the men are employed on your farms, and it is no longer for your advantage that their strength should be spent in walking miles to work—if ever it was. You will have to do it. While Jack was left in brute ignorance, it was possible to satisfy him with brute comforts and control him with brute discipline; but teach Jack the alphabet, and he becomes as shrewd as his master. He begins to consider what he is worth, and to readjust the proportion between his work and his wages—to reflect that the larger share of the profit is, perhaps, due to himself, seeing that he reaps by his own toil and sweat, and his master reaps by the toil and sweat of a score."

Mr. Chiverton had manifested signs of impatience and irritability during Mr. Forbes's address, and he now said, with his peculiar snarl for which he was famous, "Once upon a time there was a great redistribution of land in Egypt, and the fifth part of the increase was given to Pharaoh, and the other four parts were left to be food to the sowers. If Providence would graciously send us a universal famine, we might all begin again on a new foundation."

"Oh, we cannot wait for that—we must do something meanwhile," said Sir Edward Lucas, understanding him literally. "I expect we shall have to manage our land less exclusively with an eye to our own revenue from it."

Mr. Chiverton testily interrupted the young man's words of wisdom: "The fact is, Jack wants to be master himself. Strikes in the manufacturing towns are not unnatural—we know how those mercantile people grind their hands—but since it has come to strikes amongst colliers and miners, I tremble at the prospect for the country. The spirit of insubordination will spread and spread until the very plough-boys in the field are infected."

"A good thing, too, and the sooner the better," said Mr. Oliver Smith.

"No, no!" cried Mr. Fairfax, but Mr. Forbes said that was what they were coming to. Sir Edward Lucas listened hard. He was fresh from Oxford, where boating and athletic exercises had been his chief study. His father was lately dead, and the administration of a great estate had devolved upon him. His desire was to do his duty by it, and he had to learn how, that prospect not having been prepared for in his education, further than by initiation in the field-sports followed by gentlemen.

Mr. Chiverton turned on Mr. Oliver Smith with his snarl: "Your conduct as a landowner being above reproach, you can afford to look on with complacency while the rest of the world are being set by the ears."

Mr. Oliver Smith had very little land, but as all there knew what he had as well as he knew himself, he did not wince. He rejoined: "As a class, we have had a long opportunity for winning the confidence of the peasants; some of us have used it—others of us have neglected it and abused it. If the people these last have held lordship over revolt and transfer their allegiance to other masters, to demagogues hired in the streets, who shall blame them?"

"Suppose we all rise above reproach: I mean to try," said Sir Edward Lucas with an eagerness of interest that showed his good-will. "Then if my people can find a better master, let them go."

Mr. Cecil Burleigh turned to the young man: "It depends upon yourself whether they shall find a better master or not. Resolve that they shall not. Consider your duty to the land and those upon it as the vocation of your life, and you will run a worthy career."

Sir Edward was at once gratified and silenced. Mr. Cecil Burleigh's reputation was greater yet than his achievement, but a man's possibilities impress the young and enthusiastic even more than his successes accomplished.

"You hold subversive views, Burleigh—views to which the public mind is not educated up, nor will be in this generation," said Mr. Chiverton. "The old order of things will last my time."

"Changes move fast now-a-days," said Mr. Fairfax. "I should like to see a constitutional remedy provided for the Giffords of the gentry before I depart. We are too near neighbors to be friends, and Morte adjoins my property."

"Gifford was brought up in a bad school—a vaporing fellow, not true to any of his obligations," said Mr. Oliver Smith.

"It is Blagg, his agent, who is responsible," began Mr. Chiverton.

Mr. Oliver Smith interrupted contemptuously: "When a landlord permits an agent to represent him without supervision, and refuses to look into the reiterated complaints of his tenants, he gives us leave to suppose that his agent does him acceptable service."

"I have remonstrated with him myself, but he is cynically indifferent to public opinion," said Mr. Forbes.

"The public opinion that condemns a man and dines with him is not of much account," said Mr. Oliver Smith, with a glance at Mr. Chiverton, the obnoxious Gifford's very good friend.

"Would you have him cut?" demanded Mr. Chiverton. "I grant you that it is a necessary precaution to have his words in black and white if he is to be bound by them—"

"You could not well say worse of a gentleman than that, Chiverton—eh?" suggested Mr. Fairfax.

There was a minute's silence, and then Mr. Forbes spoke: "I should like our legal appointments to include advocates of the poor, men of integrity whose business it would be to watch over the rights and listen to the grievances of those classes who live by laborious work and are helpless to resist powerful wrong. Old truth bears repeating: these are the classes who maintain the state of the world—the laborer that holds the plough and whose talk is of bullocks, the carpenter, the smith, and the potter. All these trust to their hands, and are wise in their work, and when oppression comes they must seek to some one of leisure for justice. It is a pitiful thing to hear a poor man plead, 'Sir, what can I do?' when his heart burns with a sense of intolerable wrong, and to feel that the best advice you can give him is that he should bear it patiently."

"I call that too sentimental on your part, Forbes," remonstrated Mr. Chiverton. "The laborers are quiet yet, and guidable as their own oxen, but look at the trades—striking everywhere. Surely your smiths and carpenters are proving themselves strong enough to protect their own interests."

"Yes, by the combination that we should all deprecate amongst our laborers—only by that. Therefore the wise will be warned in time, for such example is contagious. Many of our people have lain so long in discontent that bitter distrust has come of it, and they are ready to abandon their natural leaders for any leader who promises them more wages and less toil. If the laborers strike, Smith's and Fairfax's will probably stick to their furrows, and Gifford's will turn upon him—yours too, Chiverton, perhaps." Mr. Forbes was very bold.

"God forbid that we should come to that!" exclaimed Mr. Fairfax devoutly. "We have all something to mend in our ways. Our view of the responsibility that goes with the possession of land has been too narrow. If we could put ourselves in the laborer's place!"

"I shall mend nothing: no John Hodge shall dictate to me," cried Mr. Chiverton in a sneering fury. "A man has a right to do what he likes with his own, I presume?"

"No, he has not; and especially not when he calls a great territory in land his own," said Mr. Forbes. "That is the false principle out of which the bad practice of some of you arises. A few have never been guided by it—they have acted on the ancient law that the land is the Lord's, and the profit of the land for all—and many more begin to acknowledge that it is a false principle by which it is not safe to be guided any longer. Pushed as far as it will go, the result is Gifford."

"And myself," added Mr. Chiverton in a quieter voice as he rose from his chair. Mr. Forbes looked at him. The old man made no sign of being affronted, and they went together into the drawing-room, where he introduced the clergyman to his wife, saying, "Here, Ada, is a gentleman who will back you in teaching me my duty to my neighbor;" and then he went over to Lady Angleby.

"You are on the side of the poor man, then, Mrs. Chiverton?" said Mr. Forbes pleasantly. "It is certainly a legitimate sphere of female influence in country neighborhoods."

The stately bride drew her splendid dress aside to make room for him on the ottoman, and replied in a measured voice, "I am. I tell Mr. Chiverton that he does not satisfy the reasonable expectations of his people. I hope to persuade him to a more liberal policy of management on his immense estates; his revenue from them is very large. It distresses me to be surrounded by a discontented tenantry, as it would do to be waited on by discontented servants. A bad cottage is an eyesore on a rich man's land, and I shall not rest until I get all Chiver-Chase cleared of bad cottages and picturesquely inconvenient old farmsteads. The people appeal to me already."

Bessie Fairfax had come up while her old school-fellow was gratifying Mr. Forbes's ears with her admirable sentiments. She could not forbear a smile at the candid assertion of power they implied, and as Mr. Forbes smiled too with a twinkle of amused surprise, Bessie said sportively, "And if Mr. Chiverton is rebellious and won't take them away, then what shall you do?"

Mrs. Chiverton was dumb; perhaps this probability had not occurred to her ruling mind. Mr. Forbes begged to know what Miss Fairfax herself would do under such circumstances. Bessie considered a minute with her pretty chin in the air, and then said, "I would not wear my diamonds. Oh, I would find out a way to bring him to reason!"

A delicate color suffused Mrs. Chiverton's face, and she looked proudly at Bessie, standing in her bright freedom before her. Bessie caught her breath; she saw that she had given pain, and was sorry: "You don't care for my nonsense—you remember me at school," she whispered, and laid her hand impulsively on the slim folded hands of the young married lady.

"I remember that you found something to laugh at in almost everything—it is your way," said Mrs. Chiverton coldly, and as her flush subsided she appeared paler than before. She was so evidently hurt by something understood or imagined in Bessie's innocent raillery that Bessie, abashed herself, drew back her hand, and as Mr. Forbes began to speak with becoming seriousness she took the opportunity of gliding away to join Miss Burleigh in the glazed verandah.

It was a dark, warm night, but the moon that was rising above the trees gradually illumined it, and made the garden mysterious with masses of shadow, black against the silver light. In the distance rose the ghostly towers of the cathedral. Miss Burleigh feared that the grass was too wet for them to walk upon it, but they paced the verandah until Mr. Cecil Burleigh found them and the rising hum of conversation in the drawing-room announced the appearance of the other gentlemen. Miss Burleigh then went back to the company, and there was an opportunity for kind words and soft whisperings between the two who were left, if either had been thereto inclined; but Bessie's frank, girlish good-humor made lovers' pretences impossible, and while Mr. Cecil Burleigh felt every hour that he liked her better, he felt it more difficult to imply it in his behavior. Bessie, on her side, fully possessed with the idea that she knew the lady of his love, was fast throwing off all sense of embarrassment in his kindness to herself; while onlookers, predisposed to believe what they wished, interpreted her growing ease as an infallible sign that his progress with her was both swift and sure.

They were still at the glass door of the verandah when Mrs. Chiverton sought Bessie to bid her good-night. She seemed to have forgotten her recent offence, and said, "You will come and see me, Miss Fairfax, will you not? We ought to be friends here."

"Oh yes," cried Bessie, who, when compunction touched her, was ready to make liberal amends, "I shall be very glad."

Mrs. Chiverton went away satisfied. The other guests not staying in the house soon followed, and when all were gone there was some discussion of the bride amongst those who were left. They were of one consent that she was very handsome and that her jewels were most magnificent.

"But no one envies her, I hope?" said Lady Angleby.

"You do not admire her motive for the marriage? Perhaps you do not believe in it?" said Mr. Cecil Burleigh.

"I quite believe that she does, but I do not commend her example for imitation."

Miss Burleigh, lingering a few minutes in Miss Fairfax's room when they went up stairs, delivered her mind on the matter. "My poor ambition flies low," she said. "I could be content to give love for love, and do my duty in the humblest station God might call me to, but not for any sake could I go into the house of bondage where no love is. Poor Mrs. Chiverton!"

Bessie made a very unsentimental reply: "Poor Mrs. Chiverton, indeed! Oh, but she does not want our pity! That old man is a slave to her, just as the girls were at school. She adores power, and if she is allowed to help and patronize people, she will be perfectly happy in her way. Everybody does not care, first and last, to love and be loved. I have been so long away from everybody who loves me that I am learning to do without it."

"Oh, my dear, don't fancy that," said Miss Burleigh, and she stroked Bessie's face and kissed her. "Some of us here are longing to love you quite as tenderly as any friends you have in the Forest." And then she bade her good-night and left her to her ruminations.

Miss Burleigh's kiss brought a blush to Bessie's face that was slow to fade even though she was alone. She sat thinking, her hands clasped, her eyes dreamily fixed on the flame of the candle. Some incidents on board the Foam recurred to her mind, and the blush burnt more hotly. Then, with a sigh, she said to herself, "It is pleasant here, everybody is good to me, but I wish I could wake up at Beechhurst to-morrow morning, and have a ride with my father, and mend socks with my mother in the afternoon. There one felt safe."

There was a knock at the door, and Mrs. Betts entered, complacent with the flattering things that had been said of her young lady in the steward's room, and willing to repeat them on the smallest encouragement: "Miss Jocund is really cleverer than could have been supposed, miss. Your white silk fits most beautiful," she began.

"I was not conscious of being newly dressed to-night, so her work must be successful," replied Bessie, untying the black velvet round her fair throat. Mrs. Betts took occasion to suggest that a few more ornaments would not be amiss. "I don't care for ornaments—I am fond of my old cross," Bessie said, laying it in the rosy palm of her hand. Then looking up with a melancholy, reflective smile, she said, "All the shining stones in the world would not tempt me to sacrifice my liberty." Mrs. Chiverton was in her thoughts, and Lady Latimer.

Mrs. Betts had a shrewd discernment, and she was beginning to understand her young lady's character, and to respect it. She had herself a vein of feeling deeper than the surface; she had seen those she loved suffer, and she spoke in reply to Miss Fairfax with heartfelt solemnity: "It is a true thing, miss, and nobody has better cause than me to know it, that happiness does not belong to rank and riches. It belongs nowhere for certain, but them that are good have most of it. For let the course of their lives run ever so contrary, they have a peace within, given by One above, that the proud and craving never have. Mr. Frederick's wife—she bears the curse that has been in her family for generations, but she had a pious bringing-up, and, poor lady! though her wits forsook her, her best comfort never did."

"Some day, Mrs. Betts, I shall ask you to tell me her story," Bessie said.

"There is not much to tell, miss. She was the second Miss Lovel (her sister and she were co-heiresses)—not to say a beauty, but a sweet young lady, and there was a true attachment between her and Mr. Frederick. It was in this very house they met—in this very house he slept after that ball where he asked her to marry him. It is not telling secrets to tell how happy she was. Your grandfather, the old squire, would have been better pleased had it been some other lady, because of what was in the blood, but he did not offer to stop it, and they lived at Abbotsmead after they were married. The house was all new done-up to welcome her; that octagon parlor was her design. She brought Mr. Frederick a great fortune, and they loved one another dearly, but it did not last long. She had a baby, and lost it, and was never quite herself after. Poor thing! poor thing!"

"And my uncle Laurence's wife," said Bessie, not to dwell on that tragedy of which she knew the issue.

"Oh! Mr. Laurence's wife!" said Mrs. Betts in a quite changed tone. "I never pitied a gentleman more. Folks who don't know ladies fancy they speak and behave pretty always, but that lady would grind her teeth in her rages, and make us fly before her—him too. She would throw whatever was in her reach. She was a deal madder and more dangerous in her fits of passion than poor Mrs. Frederick: she, poor dear! had a delusion that she was quite destitute and dependent on charity, and when she could get out she would go to the cottages and beg a bit of bread. A curious delusion, miss, but it did not distress her, for she called herself one of God's poor, and was persuaded He would take care of her. But it was very distressing to those she belonged to. Twice she was lost. She wandered away so far once that it was a month and over before we got her back. She was found in Edinburgh. After that Mr. Frederick consented to her being taken care of: he never would before."

"Oh, Mrs. Betts, don't tell me any more, or it will haunt me."

"Life's a sorrowful tale, miss, at best, unless we have love here and a hope beyond."



CHAPTER XXVI.

A MORNING AT BRENTWOOD.

Brentwood was a comfortable house to stay in for visitors who never wanted a moment's repose. Lady Angleby lived in the midst of her guests—must have their interest, their sympathy in all her occupations, and she was never without a press of work and correspondence. Bessie Fairfax by noon next day felt herself weary without having done anything but listen with folded hands to tedious dissertations on matters political and social that had no interest for her. Since ten o'clock Mr. Cecil Burleigh and Mr. Fairfax had withdrawn themselves, and were gone into Norminster, and Miss Burleigh sat, a patient victim, with two dark hollows under her eyes—bearing up with a smile while ready to sink with fatigue. The gentlemen did not return to luncheon, but a caller dropped in—a clergyman, Mr. Jones; and Miss Burleigh took the opportunity of his entrance to vanish, making a sign to Miss Fairfax to come too. They went into the garden, where they were met by a vivacious, pretty old lady, Miss Hague, a former governess of Miss Burleigh, who now acted as assistant secretary to Lady Angleby.

"Your enemy, Mr. Jones, is in the drawing-room with my aunt," Miss Burleigh told her. "Quite by chance—he was not asked."

"Oh, let him stay. It is a study to see him amble about her ladyship with the airs and graces of a favorite, and then to witness his condescension to inferior persons like me," said Miss Hague. "I'll go to your room, Mary, and take off my bonnet."

"Do, dear. We have only just escaped into the fresh air, and are making the most of our liberty."

Miss Hague lodged within a stone's throw of Brentwood, and Lady Angleby was good in bidding her go to luncheon whenever she felt disposed. She was disposed as seldom as courtesy allowed, for, though very poor, she was a gentlewoman of independent spirit, and her ladyship sometimes forgot it. She was engaged seeking some report amongst her papers when Miss Hague entered, but she gave her a nod of welcome. Mr. Jones said, "Ah, Miss Hague," with superior affability, and luncheon was announced.

Lady Angleby had to give and hear opinions on a variety of subjects while they were at table. Middle-class female education Mr. Jones had not gone into. He listened and was instructed, and supposed that it might easily be made better; nevertheless, he had observed that the best taught amongst his candidates for confirmation came from the shopkeeping class, where the parents still gave their children religious lessons at home. Then ladies of refined habits and delicate feelings as mistresses of elementary schools—that was a new idea to him. A certain robustness seemed, perhaps, more desirable; teaching a crowd of imperfectly washed little boys and girls was not fancy-work; also he believed that essential propriety existed to the full as much amongst the young women now engaged as amongst young ladies. If the object was to create a class of rural school-mistresses who would take social rank with the curate, he thought it a mistake; a school-mistress ought not to be above drinking her cup of tea in a tidy cottage with the parents of her pupils: he should prefer a capable young woman in a clean holland apron with pockets, and no gloves, to any poor young lady of genteel tastes who would expect to associate on equal terms with his wife and daughters. Then, cookery for the poor. Here Mr. Jones fell inadvertently into a trap. He said that the chief want amongst the poor was something to cook: there was very little spending in twelve shillings a week, or even in fifteen and eighteen, with a family to house, clothe, and feed. Lady Angleby held a quite opposite view. She said that a helpless thriftlessness was at the root of the matter. She had printed and largely distributed a little book of receipts, for which many people had thanked her. Mr. Jones knew the little book, and had heard his wife say that Lady Angleby's receipt for stewed rabbits was well enough, but that her receipt for hares stewed with onions was hares spoilt; and where were poor people to get hares unless they went out poaching?

"I assure your ladyship that agrimony tea is still drunk amongst our widows, and an ounce of shop-tea is kept for home-coming sons and daughters grown proud in service. They gather the herb in the autumn, and dry it in bunches for the winter's use. And many is the laborer who lets his children swallow the lion's share of his Sunday bit of meat because the wife says it makes them strong, and children have not the sense not to want all they see. Any economical reform amongst the extravagant classes that would leave more and better food within reach of the hard-working classes would be highly beneficial to both. Sometimes I wish we could return to that sumptuary law of Queen Elizabeth which commanded the rich to eat fish and fast from flesh-meat certain days of the week." Here Mr. Jones too abruptly paused. Lady Angleby had grown exceedingly red in the face; Bessie Fairfax had grown rosy too, with suppressed reflections on the prize-stature to which her hostess had attained in sixty years of high feeding. Queen Elizabeth's pious fast might have been kept by her with much advantage to her figure.

Poor Mr. Jones had confused himself as well as Lady Angleby, but the return to the drawing-room created an opportune diversion. He took up an illustrated paper with a scene from a new play, and after studying it for a few minutes began to denounce the amusements of the gay world in the tone of a man who has known nothing of them, but has let his imagination run into very queer illusions. This passed harmless. Nobody was concerned to defend the actor's vocation where nobody followed it; but Mr. Jones was next so ill-advised as to turn to Miss Hague, and say with a supercilious air that since they last met he had been trying to read a novel, which he mentioned by name—a masterpiece of modern fiction—and really he could not see the good of such works. Miss Hague and he had disagreed on this subject before. She was an inveterate novel-reader, and claimed kindred with a star of chief magnitude in the profession, and to speak lightly of light literature in her presence always brought her out warmly and vigorously in defence and praise of it.

"No good in such works, Mr. Jones!" cried she. "My hair is gray, and this is a solemn fact: for the conduct of life I have found far more counsel and comfort in novels than in sermons, in week-day books than in Sunday preachers!"

There was a startled silence. Miss Burleigh extended a gentle hand to stop the impetuous old lady, but the words were spoken, and she could only intervene as moderator: "Novels show us ourselves at a distance, as it were. I think they are good both for instruction and reproof. The best of them are but the Scripture parables in modern masquerade. Here is one—the Prodigal Son of the nineteenth century, going out into the world, wasting his substance with riotous living, suffering, repenting, returning, and rejoiced over."

"Our Lord made people think: I am not aware that novels make people think," said Mr. Jones with cool contempt.

"Apply your mind to the study of either of these books—Mr. Thackeray's or George Eliot's—and you will not find all its powers too much for their appreciation," said Miss Hague.

Mr. Jones made a slight grimace: "Pray excuse the comparison, Miss Hague, but you remind me of a groom of mine whom I sent up to the Great Exhibition. When he came home again all he had to say was, 'Oh, sir, the saddlery was beautiful!'"

"Nothing like leather!" laughed Lady Angleby.

"He showed his wit—he spoke of what he understood," said Miss Hague. "You undertake to despise light literature, of which avowedly you know nothing. Tell me: of the little books and tracts that you circulate, which are the most popular?"

"The tales and stories; they are thumbed and blackened when the serious pages are left unread," Mr. Jones admitted.

"It is the same with the higher-class periodicals that come to us from D'Oyley's library," said Lady Angleby, pointing to the brown, buff, orange, green, and purple magazines that furnished her round-table. "The novels are well read, so are the social essays and the bits of gossiping biography; but dry chapters of exploration, science, discovery, and politics are tasted, and no more: the first page or two may be opened, and the rest as often as not are uncut. And as they come to Brentwood, so, but for myself, they would go away. The young people prefer the stories, and with rare exceptions it is the same with their elders. The fact is worth considering. A puff of secular air, to blow away the vapor of sanctity in which the clergy envelop themselves, might be salutary at intervals. All fresh air is a tonic."

Mr. Jones repeated his slight grimace, and said, "Will Miss Hague be so kind as to tell me what a sermon ought to be? I will sit at her feet with all humility."

"With arrogant humility!—with the pride that apes humility," cried Miss Hague with cheerful irreverence. "I don't pretend to teach you sermon-making: I only tell you that, such as sermons mostly are, precious little help or comfort can be derived from them."

Mr. Jones again made his characteristic grimace, expressive of the contempt for secular opinion with which he was morally so well cushioned, but he had a kind heart and refrained from crushing his poor old opponent with too severe a rejoinder. He granted that some novels might be harmless, and such as he would not object to see in the hands of his daughters; but as a general rule he had a prejudice against fiction; and as for theatres, he would have them all shut up, for he was convinced that thousands of young men and women might date their ruin from their first visit to a theatre: he could tell them many anecdotes in support of his assertions. Fortunately, it was three o'clock. The butler brought in letters by the afternoon post, and the anecdotes had to be deferred to a more convenient season. The clergyman took his leave.

Lady Angleby glanced through her sheaf of correspondence, and singled out one letter. "From dear Lady Latimer," she said, and tore it open. But as she read her countenance became exceedingly irate, and at the end she tossed it over to Miss Hague: "There is the answer to your application." The old lady did not raise her eyes immediately after its perusal, and Miss Burleigh took it kindly out of her hand, saying, "Let me see." Then Lady Angleby broke out: "I do not want anybody to teach me what is my duty, I hope."

Miss Hague now looked up, and Bessie Fairfax's kind heart ached to see her bright eyes glittering as she faltered, "I think it is a very kind letter. I wish more people were of Lady Latimer's opinion. I do not wish to enter the Governesses' Asylum: it would take me quite away from all the places and people I am fond of. I might never see any of you again."

"How often must I tell you that it is not necessary you should go into the asylum? You may be elected to one of the out-pensions if we can collect votes enough. As for Lady Latimer reserving her vote for really friendless persons, it is like her affectation of superior virtue." Lady Angleby spoke and looked as if she were highly incensed.

Miss Hague was trembling all over, and begging that nothing more might be said on the subject.

"But there is no time to lose," said her patroness, still more angrily. "If you do not press on with your applications, you will be too late: everybody will be engaged for the election in November. The voting-list is on my writing-table—the names I know are marked. Go on with the letters in order, and I will sign them when I return from my drive."

Miss Fairfax's face was so pitiful and inquisitive that the substance of Lady Latimer's letter was repeated to her. It was to the effect that Miss Hague's former pupils were of great and wealthy condition for the most part, and that they ought not to let her appeal to public charity, but to subscribe a sufficient pension for her amongst themselves; and out of the respect in which she herself held her, Lady Latimer offered five pounds annually towards it. "And I think that is right," said Bessie warmly. "If you were my old governess, Miss Hague, I should be only too glad to subscribe."

"Well, my dear young lady, I was your father's governess and your uncles' until they went to a preparatory school for Eton: from Frederick's being four years old to Geoffry's being ten, I lived at Abbotsmead," said Miss Hague. "And here is another of my boys," she added as the door opened and Sir Edward Lucas was announced.

"Then I will do what my father would have done had he been alive," said Bessie. "Perhaps my uncle Laurence will too."

"What were you saying of me, dear Hoddydoddy?" asked Sir Edward, turning to the old lady when he had paid his devoirs to the rest.

The matter being explained to him, he was eager to contribute his fraction. "Then leave the final arrangement to me," said Lady Angleby. "I will settle what is to be done. You need not write any more of those letters, Miss Hague, and I trust these enthusiastic young people will not tire of what they have undertaken. It is right, but if everybody did what is right on such occasions there would be little use for benevolent institutions. Sir Edward, we were going to drive into Norminster: will you take a seat in my carriage?"

Sir Edward would be delighted; and Miss Hague, released from her ladyship's desk, went home happy, and in the midst of doubts and fears lest she had hurt the feelings of Mr. Jones wept the soft tears of grateful old age that meets with unexpected kindness. The resolute expression of her sentiments by Miss Fairfax had inspired her with confidence, and she longed to see that young lady again. In the letter of thanks she wrote to Lady Latimer she did not fail to mention how her judgment and example had been supported by that young disciple; and Lady Latimer, revolving the news with pleasure, began to think of paying a visit to Woldshire.



CHAPTER XXVII.

SOME DOUBTS AND FEARS.

Sir Edward Lucas was a gentleman for whom Lady Angleby had a considerable degree of favor: it was a pity he was so young, otherwise he might have done for Mary. Poor Mary! Mr. Forbes and she had a long, obstinate kindness for each other, but Lady Angleby stood in the way: Mr. Forbes did not satisfy any of her requirements. Besides, if she gave Mary up, who was to live with her at Brentwood? Therefore Mr. Forbes and Miss Burleigh, after a six years' engagement, still played at patience. She did not drive into Norminster that afternoon. "Mr. Fairfax and Cecil will be glad of a seat back," said she, and stood excused.

Sir Edward Lucas had more pleasure in facing his contemporary: Miss Fairfax he regarded as his contemporary. He was smitten with a lively admiration for her, and in course of the drive he sought her advice on important matters. Lady Angleby began to instruct him on what he ought to do for the improvement of his fine house at Longdown, but he wanted to talk rather of a new interest—the mineral wealth still waiting development on his property at Hippesley Moor.

"Now, what should you do, Miss Fairfax, supposing you had to earn your bread by a labor always horribly disagreeable and never unattended by danger?" he asked with great eagerness.

Bessie had not a doubt of what she should do: "I should work as hard as ever I could for the shortest possible time that would keep me in bread."

"Just so," said Sir Edward rubbing his hands. "So would I. Now, will that principle work amongst colliers? I am going to open a pit at Hippesley Moor, where the coal is of excellent quality. It is a fresh start, and I shall try to carry out your principle, Miss Fairfax; I am convinced that it is excellent and Christian."

Christian! Bessie's blue eyes widened with laughing alarm. "Oh, had you not better consult somebody of greater experience?" cried she.

Lady Angleby approved her modesty, and with smiling indulgence remarked, "I should think so, indeed!"

"No, no: experience is always for sticking to grooves," said Sir Edward. "I like Miss Fairfax's idea. It is shrewd—it goes to the root of the difficulty. We must get it out in detail. Now, if in three days' hard work the collier can earn the week's wages of an agricultural laborer and more—and he can—we have touched the reason why he takes so many play-days. It would be a very sharp spur of necessity indeed that would drive me into a coal-pit at all; and nothing would keep me there one hour after necessity was satisfied. I shall take into consideration the instinct of our common humanity that craves for some sweetness in life, and as far as I am able it shall be gratified. Now, the other three days: what shall be their occupation? Idleness will not do."