"Yes, this is mine—a rather dry nut for you. But occasionally I contribute a light-literature article."

"Oh, I must tell my lady. She and Mr. Logger were differing over that very paper, and ascribing it to half a dozen great, wise people in turn."

Harry laughed: "Pray, then, don't confess for me. The arguments will lose half their force if she learn what a tyro wrote it."

"No, no, she will be delighted to know—she adores talent. Besides, Mr. Logger told her that the cleverest articles were written by sprightly young men fresh from college. Have you paid your respects to her yet? She told me with a significant little moue that you had condescended to call upon her at Easter."

"I propose to pay my respects in company with Christie to-morrow. She is a grand old lady; and what cubs we were, Bessie, to throw her kindness in her face before! How angry you were!"

"You were afraid that her patronage might be a trespass on your independence. It was a mistake in the right direction, if it was a mistake at all. Poor Mr. Logger is called a toady because he loves to visit at the comfortable houses of rich great widow ladies, but I am sure they love to have him. Lady Latimer does not approve you any the less for not being eager to accept her invitations. You know I was fond of her—I looked up to her more than anybody. I believe I do still."

There was a brief pause, and then Harry said, "I have heard nothing of Abbotsmead yet, Bessie?"

"There is not much to hear. I live there, but no longer in the character of heiress; that prospect is changed by the opportune discovery that my uncle Laurence had the wisdom, some five years ago, to take a wife to please himself, instead of a second fine lady to please my grandfather. He made a secret of it, for which there was no necessity and not much excuse, but he did it for their happiness. They have three capital little boys, who, of course, have taken my shoes. I am not sorry. I don't care for Woldshire or Abbotsmead. The Forest has my heart."

"And mine. A man may set his hopes high, so I go on aspiring to the possession of this earthly paradise of Brook."

Bessie was smitten with a sudden recollection of what more Harry had aspired to that time she was admitted into his confidence respecting the old manor-house. She colored consciously, for she knew that he also recollected, then said with a smile, "Ah, Harry, but between such aspirations and their achievement there stretches so often a weary long day. You will tire with looking forward if you look so far. Are you not tiring now?"

"No, no. You must not take any notice of my mother's solemn prognostics. She does not admire what she calls the smoky color I bring home from London. Some remote ancestor of my father died there of decline, and she has taken up a notion that I ought to throw the study of the law to the winds, come home, and turn farmer. Of what avail, I ask her, would my scholarship be then?"

"You would enjoy it, Harry. In combination with a country life it would make you the pleasantest life a man can live."

Harry shook his head: "What do you know about it, Bessie? It is dreadfully hard on an ambitious fellow to be forced to turn his back on all his fine visions of usefulness and distinction for the paltry fear that death may cut him short."

"Oh, if you regard it in that light! I should not call it a paltry fear. There are more ways than one to distinction—this, for instance," dropping her hand on Harry's paper in the review. "Winged words fly far, and influence you never know what minds. I should be proud of the distinction of a public writer."

"Literature by itself is not enough to depend on unless one draws a great prize of popularity. I have not imagination enough to write a novel. Have you forgotten the disasters of your heroes the poets, Bessie? No—I cannot give up after a year of difficulty. I would rather rub out than rust out, if that be all."

"Oh, Harry, don't be provoking! Why rub out or rust out either?" remonstrated Bessie. "Your mother would rather keep her living son, though ever so unlucky, than bury the most promising that ever killed himself with misdirected labor. Two young men came to Abbotsmead once to bid grandpapa good-bye; they were only nineteen and sixteen, and were the last survivors of a family of seven sons. They were going to New Zealand to save their lives, and are thriving there in a patriarchal fashion with large families and flocks and herds. You are not asked to go to New Zealand, but you had better do that than die untimely in foggy England, dear as it is. Is not life sweet to you?—it is very sweet to me."

Harry got up, and walked to an open lattice that commanded the purple splendor of the western sky. He stood there two or three minutes quite silent, then by a glance invited Bessie to come. "Life is so sweet," he said, "that I dare not risk marring it by what seems like cowardice; but I will be prudent, if only for the sake of the women who love me." There was the old mirthful light in Harry's eyes as he said the last words very softly.

"Don't make fun of us," said Bessie, looking up with a faint blush. "You know we love you; mind you keep your word. It is time I was going back to Fairfield, the evening is closing in."

The door opened and Mrs. Musgrave entered. "Well, children, are you ready?" she inquired cheerfully. "We are all thinking you have had quite time enough to tell your secrets, and the doctor has been wanting to leave for ever so long."

"Bessie has been administering a lecture, mother, and giving me some serious advice; she would send me to the antipodes," said her son. Bessie made a gentle show of denial, and they came forward from the window.

"Never mind him, dear, that is his teasing way: I know how much to believe of his nonsense," said Mrs. Musgrave. "But," she added more gravely, turning to Harry, "if Bessie agrees with your mother that there is no sense in destroying your health by poring over dusty law in London when there are wholesome light ways of living to be turned to in sweet country air, Bessie is wise. I wish anybody could persuade him to tell what is his objection to the Church. Or he might go and be a tutor in some high family, as Lady Latimer suggested. He is well fitted for it."

"Did Lady Latimer suggest that, mother?" Harry asked with sharp annoyance in his voice and look.

"She did, Harry; and don't let that vex you as if it was a coming-down. For she said that many such tutors, when they took orders, got good promotion, and more than one had been made a bishop."

This was too much for the gravity of the young people. "A bishop, Bessie! Can you array me in lawn sleeves and satin gown?" cried Harry with a peal of laughter. Then, with a sudden recovery and a sigh, he said, "Nay, mother, if I must play a part, it shall not be on that stage. I'll keep my self-respect, whatever else I forfeit."

"You will have your own way, Harry, lead where it will; your father and me have not that to learn at this time of day. But, Bessie joy, Mr. Carnegie's in a hurry, and it is a good step to Fairfield. We shall see you often while you are in the Forest, I hope?"

"Staying with Lady Latimer is not quite the same as being at home, but I shall try to come again."

"Do, dear—we shall be more than pleased; you were ever a favorite at Brook," said Mrs. Musgrave tenderly. Bessie kissed Harry's mother, shook hands with himself and his father, who also patted her on the back as a reminder of old familiarity, and then went off with Mr. Carnegie, light-hearted and light-footed, a picture of young content. The doctor, after one glance at her blithe face, thought that he could tell his wife when he got home who it was their little Bessie really loved.

Harry Musgrave took his hat to set Christie part of the way back to Beechhurst in the opposite direction. The young men talked as they walked, Christie resuming the argument that the apparition of Bessie Fairfax had interrupted in the afternoon. The argument was that which Mrs. Musgrave had enunciated against the study of the law. Harry was not much moved by it. If he had a new motive for prudence, he had also a new and very strong motive for persistence. Christie suspected as much, but the name of Miss Fairfax was not mentioned.

"You have made your mark in that review, and literature is as fair a profession as art if a man will only be industrious," he said.

"I hate the notion of task-work and drudgery in literature; and what sort of a living is to be got out of our inspirations?" objected Harry.

"It is good to bear the yoke in our youth: I find it discipline to paint pot-boilers," rejoined little Christie mildly. "You must write pot-boilers for the magazines. The best authors do it."

"It is not easy to get a footing in a magazine where one would care to appear. There are not many authors whose sole dependence is a goose-quill. Call over the well-known men; they are all something else before they are authors. Your pot-boilers are sure of a market; pictures have become articles of furniture, indispensable to people of taste, and everybody has a taste now-a-days. But rejected papers are good for nothing but to light one's fire, if one can keep a fire. Look at Stamford! Stamford has done excellent work for thirty years; he has been neither idle nor thriftless, and he lives from hand to mouth still. He is one of the writers for bread, who must take the price he can get, and not refuse it, lest he get nothing. And that would be my case—is my case—for, as you know, my pen provides two-thirds of my maintenance. I cannot tax my father further. If I had not missed that fellowship! The love of money may be a root of evil, but the want of it is an evil grown up and bearing fruit that sets the teeth on edge."

"My dear Musgrave, that is the voice of despair, and for such a universal crux!"

"I don't despair, but I am tried, partly by my hard lines and partly by the anxieties at home that infect me. To think that with this frame," striking out his muscular right arm, "even Carnegie warns me as if I were a sick girl! The sins of the fathers are the modern Nessus' shirt to their children. I shall do my utmost to hold on until I get my call to the bar and a platform to start from. If I cannot hold on so long, I'll call it, as my mother does, defeat by visitation of God, and step down to be a poor fellow amongst other poor fellows. But that is not the life I planned for."

"We all know that, Musgrave, and there is no quarter where you won't meet the truest sympathy. Many a man has to come down from the tall pedestal where his hopes have set him, and, unless it be by his own grievous fault, he is tolerably sure to find his level of content on the common ground. That's where I mean to walk with my Janey; and some day you'll hold up a finger, and just as sweet a companion will come and walk hand in hand with you."

Harry smiled despite his trouble; he knew what Christie meant, and he believed him. He parted with his friend there, and turned back in the soft gloom towards home, thinking of her all the way—dear little Bessie, so frank and warm-hearted. He remembered how, when he was a boy and lost a certain prize at school that he had reckoned on too confidently, she had whispered away his shame-faced disappointment with a rosy cheek against his jacket, and "Never mind, Harry, I love you." And she would do it again, he knew she would. The feeling was in her—she could not hide it.

But at this point of his meditations his worldly wisdom came in to dash their beauty. Unless he could bridge with bow of highest promise the gulf that vicissitude had opened between them since those days of primitive affection, he need not set his mind upon her. He ought not, so he told himself, though his mind was set upon her already beyond the chance of turning. He did not know yet that he had a rival; when that knowledge came all other obstacles, sentimental, chivalrous, would be swallowed up in its portentous shadow. For to-night he held his reverie in peace.



CHAPTER XXXIX.

AT FAIRFIELD.

"We thought you were lost," was Lady Latimer's greeting to Bessie Fairfax when she entered the Fairfield drawing-room, tired with her long walk, but still in buoyant spirits.

"Oh no!" said Bessie. "I have come from Brook. When I had seen them all at home my father carried me off there to tea."

"I observed that you were not at the evening service. The Musgraves and those people drink tea at five o'clock: you must be ready for your supper now. Mr. Logger, will you be so good as to ring the bell?"

Bessie was profoundly absorbed in her own happiness, but Lady Latimer's manner, and still more the tone of her voice, struck her with an uncomfortable chill. "Thank you, but I do not wish for anything to eat," she said, a little surprised.

The bell had rung, however, and the footman appeared. "Miss Fairfax will take supper—she dined in the middle of the day," said Lady Latimer, but nothing could be less hospitable than the inflection of her speech as she gave the order.

"Indeed, indeed, I am not hungry; we had chicken and tongue to tea," cried Bessie, rather shamefaced now.

"And matrimony-cake and hot buttered toast—"

"No, we had no matrimony-cake," said Bessie, who understood now that my lady was cross; and no one could be more taunting and unpleasant than my lady when she was cross.

The footman had taken Miss Fairfax's remonstrative statement for a negative, and had returned to his own supper when the drawing-room bell rang again: "Why do you not announce Miss Fairfax's supper? Is it not ready yet?"

"In a minute, my lady," said the man, and vanished. In due time he reappeared to say that supper was served, and Lady Latimer looked at her young guest and repeated the notice. Bessie laughed, and, rising with a fine color and rather proud air, left the room and went straight to bed. When neither she nor Mrs. Betts came in to prayers half an hour later, my lady became silent and reflective: she was not accustomed to revolt amongst her young ladies, and Miss Fairfax's quiet defiance took her at a disadvantage. She had anticipated a much more timid habit in this young lady, whom she had undertaken to manage and mould to the will of her grandfather. In the morning her humor was gracious again, and Bessie, who had received counsel from Dora Meadows, deeply experienced in Aunt Olympia's peculiarities, made no sign of remembering that there had been any fray. But she was warned of the imperious temper of her hostess, who would have no independence of action amongst her youthful charges, but expected them to consult her and defer to her at every step. "Why, then," thought Bessie, "did she bid me, in the first instance, do exactly what I liked?" To this there was no answer: is there ever an answer to the why of an exacting woman's caprice?

After breakfast the young ladies took Mr. Logger out for a salubrious airing across the heath. In their absence Harry Musgrave and young Christie called at Fairfield, and, no longer in terror of Lady Latimer's patronage, talked to her of themselves, which she liked. She was exceedingly kind, and asked them both to dine the next day. "You will meet Mr. Cecil Burleigh: you may have heard his name, Mr. Musgrave? The Conservative member for Norminster," she said rather imposingly.

"Oh yes, he is one of the coming men," said Harry, much interested, and he accepted the invitation. Mr. Christie declined it. His mother was very ill, he said, but he would send his portfolio for her ladyship to look over, if she would allow him. Her ladyship would be delighted.

When the young ladies brought Mr. Logger back to luncheon the visitors were gone, but Lady Latimer mentioned that they had been there, and she gave Mr. Logger a short account of them: "Mr. Harry Musgrave is reading for the bar. He took honors at Oxford, and if his constitution will stand the wear and tear of a laborious, intellectual life, great things may be expected from him. But unhappily he is not very strong." Mr. Logger shook his head, and said it was the London gas. "Mr. Christie is a son of our village wheelwright, himself a most ingenious person. Mr. Danberry found him out, and spoke those few words of judicious praise that revealed the young man to himself as an artist. Mr. Danberry was staying with me at the time, and we had him here with his sketches, which were so promising that we encouraged him to make art his study. And he has done so with much credit."

"Christie? a landscape-painter? does a portrait now and then? I have met him at Danberry's," said Mr. Logger, whose vocation it was to have met everybody who was likely to be mentioned in society. "Curious now: Archdeacon Topham was the son of a country carpenter: headstrong fellow—took a mountain-walk without a guide, and fell down a crevasse, or something."

Mr. Cecil Burleigh arrived the next day to luncheon. In the afternoon the whole party walked in the Forest. Lady Latimer kept Dora at her elbow, and required Mr. Logger's opinion and advice on a new emigration scheme that she was endeavoring to develop. Bessie Fairfax was thus left to Mr. Cecil Burleigh, and they were not at a loss for conversation. Bessie was feeling quite gay and happy, and talked and listened as cheerfully as possible. The gentleman was rather jaded with the work of the session, and showed it in his handsome visage. He assumed that Miss Fairfax was so far in his confidence as to be interested in the high themes that interested himself, and of these he discoursed until his companion inadvertently betrayed that she was capable of abstracting her mind and thinking of something else while seeming to give him all her polite attention. He was then silent—not unthankfully.

Their walk took them first round by the wheelwright's and afterward by the village. Lady Latimer loved to entertain and occupy her guests, even those who would have preferred wider margins of leisure. On the green in front of the wheelwright's they found little Christie seated under a white umbrella, making a sketch of his father's house and the shed. A group of sturdy children had put themselves just in the way by a disabled wagon to give it life.

"I am doing it to please my mother," said the artist in reply to Lady Latimer's inquiry if he was going to make a finished picture of it. He went on with his dainty touches without moving. "I must not lose the five-o'clock effect of the sun through that tall fir," he explained apologetically.

"No; continue, pray, continue," said my lady, and summoned her party to proceed.

At the entrance of the village, to Bessie's great joy, they fell in with Mr. Carnegie returning from a long round on horseback.

"Would Bessie like a ride with the old doctor to-morrow?" he asked her as the others strolled on.

"Oh yes—I have brought my habit," she said enthusiastically.

"Then Miss Hoyden shall trot along with me, and we'll call for you—not later than ten, Bessie, and you'll not keep me waiting."

"Oh no; I will be ready. Lady Latimer has not planned anything for the morning, so I may be excused."

Whether Lady Latimer had planned anything for the morning or not, she manifested a lofty displeasure that Miss Fairfax had planned this ride for herself. Dora whispered to her not to mind, it would soon blow over. So Bessie went up stairs to dress somewhat relieved, but still with a doubtful mind and a sense of indignant astonishment at my lady's behavior to her. She thought it very odd, and speculated whether there might be any reason for it beyond the failure in deference to herself.

An idea struck her when she saw Mrs. Betts unfolding her most sumptuous dress—a rich white silk embroidered in black and silver for mourning—evidently in the intention of adorning her to the highest. "Oh, not that dress," she said. "I will wear my India muslin with black ribbons."

"It is quite a set party, miss," remonstrated Mrs. Betts.

"No matter," said Bessie decisively. No, she would not triumph over dear Harry with grand clothes.

When her young lady had spoken, Mrs. Betts knew that it was spending her breath in vain to contradict; and Bessie went down to the drawing-room with an air of inexpensive simplicity very becoming to her beauty, and that need not alarm a poor gentleman who might have visions of her as a wife. Lady Latimer instantly accused and convicted her of that intention in it—in her private thoughts, that is. My lady herself was magnificent in purple satin, and little Dora Meadows had put on her finest raiment; but Bessie, with her wealth of fair hair and incomparable beauty of coloring, still glowed the most; and she glowed with more than her natural rose when Lady Latimer, after looking her up and down from head to foot with extreme deliberation, turned away with a scorny face. Bessie's eyes sparkled, and Mr. Logger, who saw all and saw nothing, perceived that she could look scorny too.

Mr. Cecil Burleigh was pacing to and fro the conservatory into which a glass door opened from the drawing-room. His hands were clasped behind him, and his head was bent down as if he were in a profoundly cogitative mood. "I am afraid Burleigh is rather out of sorts—the effect of overstrain, the curse of our time," said Mr. Logger sententiously. Mr. Logger himself was admirably preserved.

"He is looking remarkably well, on the contrary," said Lady Latimer. My lady was certainly not in her most beneficent humor. Dora darted an alarmed glance at Bessie, and at that moment Mr. Musgrave was announced.

Bessie blushed him a sweet welcome, and said, perhaps unnecessarily, "I am so glad you have come!" and Harry expressed his thanks with kind eyes and a very cordial shake of the hand: they appeared quite confidentially intimate, those young people. Lady Latimer stood looking on like a picture of dignity, and when Mr. Cecil Burleigh entered from the conservatory she introduced the two young men in her stateliest manner. Bessie was beginning now to understand what all this meant. Throughout the dinner my lady never relaxed. She was formally courteous, elaborately gracious, but grande dame from her shoe-tie to the top-knot of her cap.

Those who knew her well were ill at ease, but Harry Musgrave dined in undisturbed, complacent comfort. He had known dons at Oxford, and placed Lady Latimer in the donnish caste: that was all. He thought she had been a more charming woman. The conversation was interrogatory, and chiefly addressed to himself, and he had plenty to say and a pleasant way of saying it, but except for Bessie's dear bright face opposite the atmosphere would have been quite freezing. When the ladies withdrew, Mr. Logger almost immediately followed, and then Mr. Cecil Burleigh was himself again. He unbent to this athletic young man, whose Oxford double-first was the hall-mark of his quality, and whom Miss Fairfax was so frankly glad to see. Harry Musgrave had heard the reputation of the other, and met his condescension with the easy deference of a young man who knows the world. They were mutually interesting, and stayed in the dining-room until Lady Latimer sent to say that tea was in.

When they entered the drawing-room my lady and Mr. Logger were deep in a report of the emigration commission. Bessie and Dora were sitting on the steps into the rose-garden watching the moon rise over the distant sea. Dora was bidden to come in out of the dew and give the gentlemen a cup of tea; Bessie was not bidden to do anything: she was apparently in disgrace. Dora obeyed like a little scared rabbit. Harry Musgrave stood a minute pensive, then took possession of a fine, quilted red silk duvet from the couch, and folded it round Bessie's shoulders with the remark that her dress was but thin. Mr. Cecil Burleigh witnessed with secret trepidation the simple, affectionate thoughtfulness with which the act was done and the beautiful look of kindness with which it was acknowledged. Bessie's innocent face was a mirror for her heart. If this fine gentleman was any longer deceived on his own account, he was one of the blind who are blind because they will not see.

Lady Latimer was observant too, and she now left her blue-book, and said, "Mr. Musgrave, will you not have tea?"

Harry came forward and accepted a cup, and was kept standing in the middle of the room for the next half hour, extemporizing views and opinions upon subjects on which he had none, until a glance of my lady's eye towards the clock on the chimney-piece gave him notice of the hours observed in great society. A few minutes after he took his leave, without having found the opportunity of speaking to Bessie again, except to say "Good-night."

As Harry Musgrave left the room my lady rang the bell, and when the servant answered it she turned to Bessie and said in her iced voice, "Perhaps you would like to send for a shawl?"

"Thank you, but I will not go out again," said Bessie mildly, and the servant vanished.

Mr. Logger, who had really much amiability, here offered a remark: "A very fine young man, that Mr. Musgrave—great power of countenance. Wherever I meet with it now I say, Let us cherish talent, for it will soon be the only real distinction where everybody is rich."

Mr. Cecil Burleigh made an inarticulate murmur, which might signify acquiescence or the reverse.

Lady Latimer said, "Young ladies, I think it is time you were going up stairs." And with dutiful alacrity the young ladies went.

"Never mind," whispered Dora to Bessie with a kiss as they separated. "If you take any notice of Aunt Olympia's tempers, you will not have a moment's peace: I never do. All will be right again in the morning." Bessie had her doubts of that, but she tried to feel hopeful; and she was not without her consolation, whether or no.



CHAPTER XL.

ANOTHER RIDE WITH THE DOCTOR.

Half-past nine was the breakfast-hour at Fairfield, and Bessie Fairfax said she would prepare for her ride before going down.

"Will you breakfast in your riding-habit, miss?—her ladyship is very particular," said Mrs. Betts in a tone implying that her ladyship might consider it a liberty. Bessie said Yes, she must not keep Mr. Carnegie waiting when he came.

So she went down stairs in her habit and a crimson neck-tie, with her hair compactly rolled up, and looking exceedingly well. Lady Latimer justified Dora's predictions: she kissed Bessie as if she had never been affronted. Bessie accepted the caress, and was thankful. It was no part of her pleasure to vex my lady.

They had not left the breakfast-table when the servant announced that Mr. Carnegie had arrived. "We will go out and see you mount," said Lady Latimer, and left her unfinished meal, Mr. Cecil Burleigh attending her. Dora would have gone too, but as Mr. Logger made no sign of moving, my lady intimated that she must remain. Lady Latimer had inquiries to make of the doctor respecting several sick poor persons, her pensioners, and while they are talking Mr. Cecil Burleigh gave Bessie a hand up into her saddle, and remarked that Miss Hoyden was in high condition and very fresh.

"Oh, I can hold her. She has a good mouth and perfect temper; she never ran away from me but once," said Bessie, caressing her old favorite with voice and hand.

"And what happened on that occasion?" said Mr. Cecil Burleigh.

"She had her fling, and nothing happened. It was along the road that skirts the Brook pastures, and at the sharp turn Mr. Harry Musgrave saw her coming—head down, the bit in her teeth—and threw open the gate, and we dashed into the clover. As I did not lose my nerve or tumble off, I am never afraid now. I love a good gallop."

Mr. Cecil Burleigh asked no more questions. If it be true that out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh, Brook and Mr. Harry Musgrave must have been much in Miss Fairfax's thoughts; this was now the third time that she had found occasion to mention them since coming to breakfast.

Lady Latimer turned in-doors again with a preoccupied air. Bessie had looked behind her as she rode down the avenue, as if she were bidding them good-bye. Mr. Cecil Burleigh was silent too. He had come to Fairfield with certain lively hopes and expectations, for which my lady was mainly responsible, and already he was experiencing sensations of blankness worse to bear than disappointment. Others might be perplexed as to Miss Fairfax's sentiments, but to him they were clear as the day—friendly, but nothing more. She was now where she would be, was exuberantly contented, and could not hide how slight a tie upon her had been established by a year amongst her kindred in Woldshire.

"This is like old times, Bessie," said the doctor as the Fairfield gate closed behind them.

Bessie laughed and tossed her head like a creature escaped. "Yes, I am so happy!" she answered.

The ride was just one of the doctor's regular rounds. He had to call at Brook, where a servant was ill, and they went by the high-road to the manor. Harry Musgrave was not at home. He had gone out for a day's ranging, and was pensively pondering his way through the bosky recesses of the Forest, under the unbroken silence of the tall pines, to the seashore and the old haunts of the almost extinct race of smugglers. The first person they met after leaving the manor was little Christie with a pale radiant face, having just come on a perfect theme for a picture—a still woodland pool reflecting high broken banks and flags and rushes, with slender birchen trees hanging over, and a cluster of low reed-thatched huts, very uncomfortable to live in, but gloriously mossed and weather-stained to paint.

"Don't linger here too late—it is an unwholesome spot," said Mr. Carnegie, warning him as he rode on. Little Christie set up his white umbrella in the sun, and kings might have envied him.

"My mother is better, but call and see her," he cried after the doctor; this amendment was one cause of the artist's blitheness.

"Of course, she is better—she has had nothing for a week to make her bad," said Mr. Carnegie; but when he reached the wheelwright's and saw Mrs. Christie, with a handkerchief tied over her cap, gently pacing the narrow garden-walks, he assumed an air of excessive astonishment.

"Yes, Mr. Carnegie, sir, I'm up and out," she announced in a tone of no thanks to anybody. "I felt a sing'lar wish to taste the air, and my boy says, 'Go out, mother; it will do you more good than anything.' I could enjoy a ride in a chaise, but folks that make debts can afford to behave very handsome to themselves in a many things that them that pays ready money has to be mean enough to do without. Jones's wife has her rides, but if her husband would pay for the repair of the spring-cart that was mended fourteen months ago come Martinmas, there'd be more sense in that."

"Don't matter, my good soul! Walking is better than riding any fine day, if you have got the strength," said the doctor briskly.

"Yes, sir; there's that consolation for them that is not rich and loves to pay their way. I hope to walk to church next Sunday, please the Lord. And if a word could be given to Mr. Wiley not to play so on the feelings, it would be a mercy. He do make such awful faces, and allude to sudden death and accidents and the like, as is enough to give an ailing person a turn. I said to Mrs. Bunny, 'Mary,' I said, 'don't you go to hear him; leastways, sit by the door if you must, and don't stop for the sermon: it might make that impression it would do the babe a mischief.'"

"Go to chapel; it is nearer. And take Mrs. Bunny with you," said Mr. Carnegie.

"No, sir. Mrs. Wiley has been very kind in calling and taking notice since I have been laid up, and one good turn deserves another. I shall attend church in future, though the doctrine's so shocking that if folks pondered it the lunatic asylums wouldn't hold 'em all. I'll never believe as the Lord meant us to be threatened with judgment to come, and hell, and all that, till one's afraid to lie down in one's bed. He'd not have let there be an end of us if we didn't get so mortal tired o' living."

"Living is a weariness that men and women bear with unanimous patience, Mrs. Christie—aches and pains included."

"So it may be, sir. We are fearfully and wonderfully made. A week ago I could not have thought the pleasure it would be to-day to see the sun, and the pretty things in flower, and my boy going out with his color-box. And not as much physic have you given me, Mr. Carnegie, as would lie on a penny-piece."

Bessie Fairfax laughed as they rode on, and said, "Nobody changes. I should be tempted to give Mrs. Christie something horribly nasty for her ingratitude."

"Nobody changes," echoed the doctor. "She will be at her drugs again before the month is out."

A little beyond the wheelwright's, Mr. Carnegie pulled up at a spot by the wayside where an itinerant tinker sat in the shade with his brazier hot, doing a good stroke of work on the village kettles and pots: "Eh, Gampling, here you are again! They bade me at home look out for you and tell you to call. There is a whole regiment of cripples to mend."

"Then let 'em march to Hampton, sir—they'll get back some time this side o' Christmas," said the tinker, with a surly cunning glance out of the corner of his eye. "Your women's so mighty hard to please that I'm not meaning to call again; I prefers to work where I gives satisfaction."

"I did hear something of a pan new bottomed to mend a hole in its side; but what is that amongst friends? Mistakes will occur in the best-regulated businesses."

"You're likely to know, sir—there's a sight o' folks dropping off quite unaccountable else. I'm not dependent on one nor another, and what I says I stands to: I'll never call at Dr. Carnegie's back door again while that Irish lass is about his kitchen; she's give me the rough side of her tongue once, but she won't do it no more."

"Then good-day to you, Gampling; I can't part with the Irish lass at your price."

A sturdy laborer came along the road eating a hunch of bread and cheese. Mr. Carnegie asked him how his wife did. The answer was crabbed: "She's never naught to boast on, and she's allus worse after a spiritchus visit: parson's paying her one now. Can you tell me, Mr. Carnegie, sir, why parson chooses folk's dinner-time to drop in an' badger 'em about church? Old parson never did." He did not stay to have his puzzle elucidated, but trudged heavily on.

"Mr. Wiley does not seem very popular yet," observed Bessie.

"He is more so than he was. But his wife, who helps the poor liberally in the winter, is of twice the use in the parish that he is, with his inopportune 'spiritchus visits.' I have remonstrated with him about going to the cottages between twelve and one, when dinner is being eaten and the men want a bit of rest, but he professes that it is the only time to catch them in-doors. I suppose Molton won't bear it, and takes up his food and walks out. Yet Beechhurst might have a worse pastor than poor Wiley. He is a man I pity—a martyr to dyspepsia and a gloomy imagination. But I will not deny that he often raises my choler still." The doctor was on the verge of having it raised now.

At the last bend of the road to the village, and nearly opposite the forge, was a small cabin of one room, the abode of the respectable Mrs. Wallop, the mainstay of Beechhurst as a nurse in last illnesses and dangerous cases—a woman of heart and courage, though perhaps of too imaginative a style of conversation. Although it was but a work-day, she was sitting at her own door in her Sunday black gown and bonnet, and, like Niobe, all tears. Mr. Carnegie pulled up in sheer amazement at the deplorable spectacle his valued right hand was making of herself in public, and, as if she had been on the watch for him, up she rose from her stool and came forward to answer his unspoken questions.

"Ay, Mr. Carnegie, sir, you may well ask what I am doing at home all day idle," said she. "It is a Judas I feel, and if I don't get it off my mind it will be too much for me: I can't bear it, sir."

"Then out with it, Mrs. Wallop," said the imperative doctor. "It is nothing very private, or you would not advertise it by crying at the corner of the street."

"No, sir, but it shames me to tell it, that it do, though you're one o' them that well knows what flesh and blood comes to when the temptation's strong. I've took money, Mr. Carnegie, wage for a month, to go nowheres else but to the rectory; and nobody ill there, only a' might happen. It never occurred to me the cruel sin I'd done till Robb came along, begging and praying of me to go to them forlorn poor creturs at Marsh-End. For it is the fever, sir. Mr. Wiley got wind of it, and sent Robb over to make sure."

"Lost in misery they are. Fling away your dirty hire, and be off to Marsh-End, Mrs. Wallop. Crying and denying your conscience will disagree very badly with your inside," said Mr. Carnegie, angry contempt in his voice.

"I will sir, and be glad to. It ain't Christian—no, nor human natur—to sit with hands folded when there is sick folk wanting help. Poor Judas!" she went on in soliloquy as the doctor trotted off. "I reckon his feelings changed above a bit between looking at the thirty pieces of silver and wishing he had 'un, and finding how heavy they was on his soul afore he was drove to get rid of 'em, and went out and hanged himself. I won't do that, anyhow, while I've a good charicter to fall back on, but I'll return Mrs. Wiley her money, and take the consequences if she sets it about as I'm not a woman of my word."

A few minutes more brought Mr. Carnegie home with Bessie Fairfax to his own door. Hovering about on the watch for the doctor's return was Mr. Wiley. Though there was no great love lost between them, the rector was imbued with the local faith in the doctor's skill, and wanted to consult him.

"You have heard that the fever has broken out again?" he said with visible trepidation.

"I have no case of fever myself. I hear that Robb has."

"Yes—two in one house. Now, what precautions do you recommend against infection?"

"For nervous persons the best precaution is to keep out of the way of infection."

"You would recommend me to keep away from Marsh-End, then? Moxon is nearer, though it is in my parish."

"I never recommend a man to dodge his duty. Mrs. Wallop will be of most use at present; she is just starting."

"Mrs. Wallop? My wife has engaged her and paid her for a month in the event of any trouble coming amongst ourselves. You must surely be mistaken, Mr. Carnegie?"

"Mrs. Wiley was mistaken. She did not know her woman. Good-morning to you, sir."



CHAPTER XLI.

FRIENDS AND ACQUAINTANCES.

Mrs. Carnegie from the dining-room window witnessed the colloquy between the rector and her husband, and came out into the porch to receive her dear Bessie. "They will not expect you at Fairfield until they see you; so come in, love," said she, and Bessie gladly obeyed.

The doctor's house was all the quieter for the absence of the elder boys at Hampton. The other children were playing in the orchard after school. "It is a great convenience to have a school opened here where boys and girls are both taught from four up to ten, and very nicely taught," said the mother. "It gives me a little leisure. Even Totty goes, and likes it, bless her!"

Mr. Carnegie was not many minutes in-doors. He ate a crust standing, and then went away again to answer a summons that had come since he went out in the morning.

"It will be a good opportunity, Bessie, to call on Miss Buff and Miss Wort, and to say a word in passing to the Semples and Mittens; they are always polite in asking after you," Mrs. Carnegie mentioned at the children's dinner. But Miss Buff, having heard that Miss Fairfax was at the doctor's house, forestalled these good intentions by arriving there herself. She was ushered into the drawing-room, and Bessie joined her, and was embraced and rejoiced over exuberantly.

"You dear little thing! I do like you in your habit," cried she. "Turn round—it fits beautifully. So you have been having a ride with the doctor, and seeing everybody, I suppose? Mrs. Wiley wonders when you will call."

"Oh yes, Bessie dear, you must not neglect Mrs. Wiley," said Mrs. Carnegie.

"It will do some day with Lady Latimer—she has constant business at the rectory," Bessie said. She did not wish to waste this precious afternoon in duty-visits to people she did not care for.

"Well, I was to have written to you, and I never did," recommenced Miss Buff.

"Out of sight, out of mind: don't apologize!"

But Miss Buff would explain and extenuate her broken promise: "The fact is, my hands are almost too full: what with the school and the committee, the organ and church, the missionary club and my district, I am a regular lay-curate. Then there is Mr. Duffer's early service, eight o'clock; and Fridays and Wednesdays and all the saints' days, and decorating for the great festivals—perhaps a little too much of that, but on Whitsunday the chancel was lovely, was it not, Mrs. Carnegie?" Mrs. Carnegie nodded her acquiescence. "Then I have a green-house at last, and that gives me something to do. I should like to show you my green-house, Bessie. But you must be used to such magnificent things now that perhaps you will not care for my small place."

"I shall care as much as ever. I prefer small things to great yet."

"And my fowl-house—you shall see that—and my pigeons. You used to be so fond of live creatures, Bessie."

"By the by, Miss Buff, have you discovered yet the depredator of your poultry-yard?" Mrs. Carnegie asked.

"No, but I have put a stop to his depredations. I strongly suspect that pet subject of Miss Wort's—that hulking, idle son of Widow Burt. I am sorry for her, but he is no good. You know I wrote to the inspector of police at Hampton. Did I not tell you? No! Well, but I did, and said if he would send an extra man over to stay the night in the house and watch who stole my pigeons, he should have coffee and hot buttered toast; and I dare say Eppie would not have objected to sit up with him till twelve. However, the inspector didn't—he did not consider it necessary—but the ordinary police probably watched, for I have not been robbed since. And that is a comfort; I hate to sleep with one eye open. You are laughing, Bessie; you would not laugh if you had lost seven pigeons ready to go into a pie, and all in the space of ten days. I am sure that horrid Burt stole 'em."

Bessie still laughed: "Is your affection so material? Do you love your pigeons so dearly that you eat them up?" said she.

"What else should I keep them for? I should be overrun with pigeons but for putting them in pies; they make the garden very untidy as it is. I have given up keeping ducks, but I have a tame gull for the slugs. Who is this at the gate? Oh! Miss Wort with her inexhaustible physic-bottle. Everybody seems to have heard that you are here, Bessie."

Miss Wort came in breathless, and paused, and greeted Bessie in a way that showed her wits were otherwise engaged. "It is the income-tax," she explained parenthetically, with an appealing look round at the company. "I have been so put out this morning; I never had my word doubted before. Jimpson is the collector this year—"

"Jimpson!" broke out Miss Buff impetuously. "I should like to know who they will appoint next to pry into our private affairs? As long as old Dobbs collected all the rates and taxes they were just tolerable, but since they have begun to appoint new men every year my patience is exhausted. Talk of giving us votes at elections: I would rather vote at twenty elections than have Tom, Dick, and Harry licensed to inquire into my money-matters. Since Dobbs was removed we have had for assessors of income-tax both the butchers, the baker, the brewer, the miller, the little tailor, the milk-man; and now Jimpson at the toy-shop, of all good people! There will soon be nobody left but the sweep."

"The sweep is a very civil man, but Jimpson is impertinent. I told him the sum was not correct, and he answered me: 'The government of the country must have money to carry on; I have nothing to do with the sum except to collect it. If you don't like it, ma'am, you've got to appeal and go before the commissioners.' He may puzzle me with his figures, but he will never convince me I have the income, for I have not. And he said if I supposed he was fond of the job I was mistaken."

"Can Mr. Carnegie help you, Miss Wort? Men manage these things so much more easily than we do," said Mrs. Carnegie kindly.

"Thank you, but I paid the demand as the least trouble and to have done with it."

"Of course; I would pay half I am possessed of rather rather than go before the commissioners," said Miss Buff. "Old Phipps is one of them; and here he is. Come to see you, Bessie; you are having quite a levee. I shall be off now." Miss Buff rose, and Miss Wort with her, but before they went there were some rallying speeches to be exchanged between Miss Buff and the quaint old bachelor. They were the most friendly of antagonists, and their animosity was not skin-deep. "Have you seen Lady Latimer since the last school committee, Mr. Phipps?" asked Miss Buff, in mischievous allusion to their latest difference of opinion.

"No. I always keep as far as possible out of her ladyship's way."

"If you had her spirit of charity you would not avow it."

"You take the name of charity in vain. 'It is the beginning, the excuse, and the pretext for a thousand usurpations.' Poverty has a new terror now-a-days in the officiousness of women with nothing to do but play at charity."

Miss Wort shook her head and shut her eyes, as if to stave off the shock of this profanity. Miss Buff only laughed the more merrily, and declared that Mr. Phipps himself had as much to answer for as anybody in Beechhurst, if charity was a sin.

"I can charge myself with very few acts of charity," said he grimly. "I am not out of bonds to bare justice."

Mr. Phipps was in his sarcastic vein, and shot many a look askance at Cinderella in the sofa corner, with her plumed velvet hat lying on a chair beside her. She had been transformed into a most beautiful princess, there was no denying that. He had heard a confidential whisper respecting Mr. Cecil Burleigh, and had seen that gentleman—a very handsome personage to play the part of prince in the story. Mr. Phipps had curiosity, discernment, and a great shrewdness. Bessie had a happy face, and was enjoying her day in her old home; but she would never be Cinderella in the nursery any more—never the little sunburnt gypsy who delighted to wander in the Forest with the boys, and was nowhere so well pleased as when she might run wild. He told her so; he wanted to prove her temper since her exaltation.

"I shall never be only twelve years old again, and that's true," said Bessie, with a sportive defiance exceedingly like her former self. "But I may travel—who knows how far and wide?—and come home browner than any berry. Grandpapa was a traveller once; so was my uncle Laurence in pursuit of antiquities; and my poor uncle Frederick—you know he was lost in the Baltic? The gypsy wildness is in the blood, but I shall always come back to the Forest to rest."

"She will keep up that delusion in her own mind to the last," said Mr. Phipps. Then after an instant's pause, as if purposely to mark the sequence of his thoughts, he asked, "Is that gentleman who is staying at Fairfield with you now, Mr. Cecil Burleigh, a Woldshire man or South country?"

"Woldshire," said Bessie curtly; and the color mounted to her face at the boldness of her old friend's insinuation.

Mr. Phipps admired her anger, and went on with great coolness: "He has some reputation—member for Norminster, I think you said? The Fairfaxes used to be great in that part of the county fifty years ago. And I suppose, Miss Fairfax, you can talk French now and play on the piano?"

Bessie felt that he was very impertinent, but she preserved her good-humor, and replied laughing, "Yes, Mr. Phipps, I can do a little of both, like other young ladies." Mr. Carnegie had now come in.

"The old piano is sadly out of tune, but perhaps, Bessie dear, you would give us a song before you go," suggested her mother.

Bessie gracefully complied, but nobody thought much of her little French canzonette. "It is but a tiny chirp, Bessie; we have better songs than that at home—eh, mother?" said the doctor, and that was all the compliment she got on her performance. Mr. Phipps was amused by her disconcerted air; already she was beyond the circle where plain speaking is the rule and false politeness the exception. She knew that her father must be right, and registered a silent vow to sing no more unless in private.

Just at this crisis a carriage drove up and stopped at the gate. "It is the Fairfield carriage come to carry you off, Bessie," said her mother. Lady Latimer looked out and spoke to the footman, who touched his hat and ran to the porch with his message, "Would Miss Fairfax make haste?—her ladyship was in a hurry."

"I must go," said Bessie, and took her hat. Mr. Phipps sighed like an echo, and everybody laughed. "Good-bye, but you will see me very soon again," she cried from the gate, and then she got into the carriage.

"To Admiral Parking's," said Lady Latimer, and they drove off on a round of visits, returning to Fairfield only in time to dress for dinner.

Just at that hour Harry Musgrave was coming back from his ramble in the red light of a gorgeous sunset, to be met by his mother with the news that Bessie Fairfax had called at the manor in the course of a ride with the doctor in the morning, and what a pity it was that he was out of the way! for he might have had a ride with them if he had not set off quite so early on his walk. Harry regretted too much what he had missed to have much to say about it; it was very unlucky. Bessie at Fairfield, he clearly discerned, was not at home for him, and Lady Latimer was not his friend. He had not heard any secrets respecting Mr. Cecil Burleigh, but a suspicion obscured his fancy since last night, and his mother's tidings threw him into a mood of dejection that made him as pale as a fond lover whom his lady has rebuffed.



CHAPTER XLII.

HOW FRIENDS MAY FALL OUT..

Mr. and Mrs. Bernard and Mr. Wiley were added to the dinner-party at Fairfield that evening, and Lady Latimer gave Miss Fairfax a quiet reminder that she might have to be on her guard, for the rector was as deficient in tact as ever. And so he proved. He first announced that the fever had broken out again at Littlemire and Marsh-End, after the shortest lull he recollected, thus taking away Mr. Logger's present appetite, and causing him to flee from the Forest the first thing in the morning. Then he condoled with Mrs. Bernard on a mishap to her child that other people avoided speaking of, for the consequences were likely to be very serious, and she had not yet been made fully aware of them. There was a peculiar, low, lugubrious note in his voice which caused it to be audible through the room, and Bessie, who sat opposite to him, between Mr. Cecil Burleigh and Mr. Logger, devoted all her conversation to them to avoid that of the rector. But he had taken note of her at the moment of his entrance, and though the opportunity of remark had not been afforded him, he soon made it, beginning with inquiries after her grandfather. Then he reverted to Mr. Fairfax's visit to Beechhurst four years ago, and spoke in a congratulatory, patronizing manner that was peculiarly annoying to Bessie: "There is a difference between now and then—eh, Bessie? Mrs. Wiley and I have often smiled at one naive little speech of yours—about a nest-egg that was saving up for a certain event that young ladies look forward to. It must be considerably grown by now, that nest-egg. You remember, I see."

Anybody might see that Bessie remembered; not her face only, but her neck, her very arms, burned.

"Secrets are not to be told out of the confessional," said Mr. Bernard. "Miss Fairfax, you blush unseen by me."

There was a general low ripple of laughter, and everybody began to talk at once, to cover the young lady's palpable confusion. Afterward, Lady Latimer, who had been amused, begged to know what that mysterious nest-egg might be. Bessie hesitated. "Tell us, do tell us," urged Dora and Mrs. Bernard; so Bessie told them. She had to mention the schemes for sending her to the Hampton Training School and Madame Michaud's millinery shop by way of making her story clear, and then Lady Latimer rather regretted that curiosity had prevailed, and manifested her regret by saying that Mr. Wiley was one of the most awkward and unsafe guests she ever invited to her table. "I should have asked him to meet Mr. Harry Musgrave last night, but he would have been certain to make some remark or inquiry that would have hurt the young man's feelings or put him out of countenance."

"Oh no," said Bessie with a beautiful blushing light in her face, "Harry is above that. He has made his own place, and holds it with perfect ease and simplicity. I see no gentleman who is his better."

"You were always his advocate," Lady Latimer said with a sudden accession of coldness. "Oxford has done everything for him. Dora, close that window; Margaret, don't stand in a draught. Mr. Harry Musgrave is a very plain young man."

"Aunt Olympia, no," remonstrated Mrs. Bernard, who had a suspicion of Miss Fairfax's tenderness in that quarter, and for kind sympathy would not have her ruffled.

But Bessie was quite equal to the occasion. "His plainness is lost in what Mr. Logger calls his power of countenance," said she. "And I'm sure he has a fine eye, and the sweetest smile I know."

Lady Latimer's visage was a study of lofty disapproval: "Has he but one eye?—I thought he had two. When young ladies begin to talk of young gentlemen's fine eyes and sweet smiles, we begin to reflect. But they commonly keep such sentiments to themselves."

Dora and Bessie glanced at one another, and had the audacity to laugh. Then Mrs. Bernard laughed and shook her head. My lady colored; she felt herself in a minority, and, though she did not positively laugh, her lips parted and her air of severity melted away. Bessie had cast off all fear of her with her old belief in her perfection. She loved her, but she knew now that she would never submit to her guidance. Lady Latimer glanced in the girl's brave, bright face, and said meaningly, "The nest-egg will not have been saving up unnecessarily if you condescend to such a folly as that." And Bessie felt that my lady had got the last word for the present.

She looked guilty yet indignant at this open reference to what was no more than an unspoken vision. She had a thousand shy silent thoughts in her heart, but it was not for any one to drag them into the light. Lady Latimer understood that she had said too much, but she would not retract, and in this way their contention began. They were henceforward visibly in opposition. Mr. Harry Musgrave called the next morning at Fairfield and asked for Miss Fairfax. He was not admitted; he was told that she was not at home.

"But I was at home. Perhaps he is going back to London. I should have liked to see him," said Bessie when she heard.

"He came at eleven o'clock: who comes at eleven o'clock? Of course Roberts said 'Not at home,'" replied my lady.

Bessie knew that Roberts would not have said "Not at home" unless he had received orders to that effect. And, in fact, his orders were to say "Not at home" to Mr. Harry Musgrave at any and every hour. Lady Latimer had pledged herself to secure the success of Mr. Cecil Burleigh. She felt that Bessie was strong in her frank defiance, but if my lady could do no more for the discouraged suitor, she could at least keep his favored rival at a distance. And this she did without a twinge of remorse. Bessie had a beautiful temper when she was pleased, but her whole soul rebelled against persecution, and she considered it acute persecution to be taken out for formal drives and calls in custody of my lady and Mr. Cecil Burleigh, when her mother was probably mending the boys' socks, and longing for an hour or two of her company at Beechhurst, and Harry Musgrave was looking in every afternoon at the doctor's to see if, by good luck, she had gone over. Bessie was made aware of this last circumstance, and she reckoned it up with a daily accumulating sense of injury against my lady and her client. Mr. Cecil Burleigh found out before long that he was losing rather than gaining in her esteem. Miss Fairfax became not only stiff and cold, but perverse, and Lady Latimer began to feel that it was foolishly done to bring her to Fairfield. She had been put in the way of the very danger that was to be averted. Mr. Harry Musgrave showed to no disadvantage in any company; Miss Fairfax had not the classic taste; Lady Angleby's tactics were a signal failure; her nephew it was who suffered diminution in the ordeal she had prescribed for his rival; and the sooner, therefore, that Miss Fairfax, "a most determined young lady," was sent back to Woldshire, the better for the family plans.

"I shall not invite Elizabeth Fairfax to prolong her visit," Lady Latimer said to Mr. Cecil Burleigh, who in his own mind was sorry she had made it. "I am afraid that her temper is masterful." My lady was resolved to think that Bessie was behaving very ill, not reflecting that a young lady pursued by a lover whom she does not love is allowed to behave worse than under ordinary circumstances.

Bessie would have liked to be asked to stay at Fairfield longer (which was rather poor-spirited of her), for, though she did not go so much to her old home or to Brook as she desired and had expected, it was something to know that they were within reach. Her sense of happiness was not very far from perfect—the slight bitterness infused into her joy gave it a piquancy—and Lady Latimer presently had brought to her notice symptoms so ominous that she began to wish for the day that would relieve her from her charge.

One morning Mr. Cecil Burleigh was pacing the garden without his hat, his head bent down, and his arms clasped behind him as his custom was, when Bessie, after regarding him with pensive abstraction for several minutes, remarked to Dora in a quaint, melancholy voice: "Mr. Cecil Burleigh's hyacinthine locks grow thin—he is almost bald." My lady jumped up hastily to look, and declared it nonsense—it was only the sun shining on his head. Dora added that he was growing round-shouldered too.

"Why not say humpbacked at once?" exclaimed Lady Latimer angrily. Both the girls laughed: it was very naughty.

"But he is not humpbacked, Aunt Olympia," said the literal Dora.

My lady walked about in a fume, moved and removed books and papers, and tried to restrain a violent impulse of displeasure. She took up the review that contained Harry Musgrave's paper, and said with impatience, "Dora, how often must I beg of you to put away the books that are done with? Surely this is done with."

"I have not finished reading Harry's article yet: please let me take it," said Bessie, coming forward.

"'Harry's article'? What do you mean?" demanded Lady Latimer with austerity: "'Mr. Harry Musgrave' would sound more becoming."

"I forgot to tell you: the paper you and Mr. Logger were discussing the first evening I was here was written by Mr. Harry Musgrave," said Bessie demurely, but not without pride.

"Oh, indeed! The crudeness Mr. Logger remarked in it is accounted for, then," said my lady, and Bessie's triumph was abated. Also my lady carried off the review, and she saw it no more.

"It is only Aunt Olympia's way," whispered Dora to comfort her. "It will go off. She is very fond of you, but you must know you are dreadfully provoking. I wonder how you dare?"

"And is not she dreadfully provoking?" rejoined Bessie, and began to laugh. "But I am too happy to be intimidated. She will forgive me—if not to-day, then to-morrow, or if not to-morrow, then the day after; or I can have patience longer. But I will not be ruled by her—never!"



CHAPTER XLIII.

BETWEEN THEMSELVES.

It was on this day, when Bessie Fairfax's happiness primed her with courage to resist my lady's imperious will, that Harry Musgrave learnt for a certainty he had a rival. The rector was his informant. Mr. Wiley overtook Harry sauntering in the Forest, and asked him how he did, adding that he regretted to hear from his mother that there was a doubt of his being able to continue his law-studies in London, and reminding him of his own unheeded warnings against his ambition to rise in the world.

"Oh, I shall pull through, I trust," replied the young man, betraying no disquiet. "My mother is a little fanciful, as mothers often are. You must not encourage her anxieties."

"You look strong enough, but appearances are sometimes deceptive. Take care of yourself—health is before everything. It was a pity you did not win that fellowship: I don't know how you mean to live after you have got your call to the bar. You clever young fellows who rise from the ranks expect to carry the world before you, but it is a much harder matter than you think. Your father cannot make you much of an allowance?"

Harry knew the rector's tactless way too well to be affronted now by any remark he might make or any question he might ask. "My father has a liberal mind," he said good-humoredly. "And a man hopes for briefs sooner or later."

"It is mostly later, unless he have singular ability or good connexions. You must marry a solicitor's daughter," said the rector, flourishing his stick. Harry said he would try to dispense with violent expedients. They walked on a minute or two in silence, and then Mr. Wiley said: "You have seen Miss Fairfax, of course?—she is on a visit at Fairfield."

"Yes. She has been at Brook," replied Harry with reticent coolness. "We all thought her looking remarkably well."

"Yes, beautiful—very much improved indeed. My wife was quite astonished, but she has been living in the very best society. And have you seen Mr. Cecil Burleigh?"

Harry made answer that he had dined at Fairfield one evening, and had met Mr. Cecil Burleigh there.

"Miss Fairfax's friends must be glad she is going to marry so well—so suitably in every point of view. It is an excellent match, and, I understand from Lady Latimer, all but settled. She is delighted, for they are both immense favorites with her."

Harry Musgrave was dumb. Yet he did not believe what he heard—he could not believe it, remembering Bessie's kind, pretty looks. Why, her very voice had another, softer tone when she spoke to him; his name was music from her lips. The rector went on, explaining the fame and anticipated future of Mr. Cecil Burleigh in a vaguely confidential manner, until they came to a spot where two ways met, and Harry abruptly said, "I was going to Littlemire to call on Mr. Moxon, and this is my road." He held out his hand, and was moving off when Mr. Wiley's visage put on a solemn shade of warning:

"It will carry you through Marsh-End. I would avoid Marsh-End just now if I were you—a nasty, dangerous place. The fever is never long absent. I don't go there myself at present."

But Harry said there was a chance, then, that he might meet with his old tutor in the hamlet, and he started away, eager to be alone and to escape from the rector's observation, for he knew that he was betraying himself. He went swiftly along under the sultry shade in a confused whirl of sensations. His confidence had suddenly failed him. He had counted on Bessie Fairfax for his comrade since he was a boy; the idea of her was woven into all his pleasant recollections of the past and all his expectations in the future. Since that Sunday evening in the old sitting-room at Brook her sweet, womanly figure had been the centre of his thoughts, his reveries. He had imagined difficulties, obstacles, but none with her. This real difficulty, this tangible obstacle, in the shape of Mr. Cecil Burleigh, a suitor chosen by her family and supported by Lady Latimer, gave him pause. He could not affect to despise Mr. Cecil Burleigh, but he vowed a vow that he would not be cheated of his dear little Bessie unless by her own consent. Was it possible that he was deceived in her—that he and she mistook her old childish affection for the passion that is strong as death? No—no, it could not be. If there was truth in her eyes, in her voice, she loved him as dearly as he loved her, though never a word of love had been spoken between them. The young man wrought himself up into such a state of agitation and excitement that he never reached Marsh-End nor saw Mr. Moxon at all that day. He turned, and bent his steps by a circuitous path to a woodland nook where he had left his friend Christie at work a couple of hours ago.

"Back again so soon? Then you did not find Moxon at home," said the artist, scarcely lifting an eye from the canvas.

Harry flung himself on the ground beside his friend and delivered his mind of its new burden. Christie now condescended to look at him and to say calmly, "It is always well to know what threatens us, but there is no need to exaggerate facts. Mr. Cecil Burleigh is a rival you may be proud to defeat; Miss Fairfax will please herself, and I think you are a match for him. You have the start."

"I know Bessie is fond of me, but she is a simple, warm-hearted girl, and is fond of all of us," said Harry with a reflective air.

"I had no idea you were so modest. Probably she has a slight preference for you." Christie went on painting, and now and then a telling touch accentuated his sentiments.

Harry hearkened, and grew more composed. "I wish I had her own assurance of it," said he.

"You had better ask her," said Christie.

After this they were silent for a considerable space, and the picture made progress. Then Harry began again, summing up his disadvantages: "Is it fair to ask her? Here am I, of no account as to family or fortune, and under a cloud as to the future, if my mother and Carnegie are justified in their warnings—and sometimes it comes over me that they are—why, Christie, what have I to offer her? Nothing, nothing but my presumptuous self."

"Let her be judge: women have to put up with a little presumption in a lover."

"Would it not be great presumption? Consider her relations and friends, her rank and its concomitants. I cannot tell how much she has learnt to value them, how necessary they have become to her. Lady Latimer, who was good to me until the other day, is shutting her doors against me now as too contemptible."

"Not at all. The despotic old lady shuts her doors against you because she is afraid of you."

"What have I to urge except that I love her?"

"The best of pleas. Don't fear too much. Give her leave to love you by avowing your love—that is what a girl waits for: if you let her go back to Woldshire without an understanding between yourselves, she will think you care for your own pride more than for her."

"I wish she were little Bessie at Beechhurst again, and all her finery blown to the winds. I have not seen her for five days."

"That must be your own fault. You don't want an ambassador? If you do, there's the post."

Harry was silent again. He was chiefly raising objections for the pleasure of hearing them contradicted; of course he was not aware of half the objections that might have been cited against him as an aspirant to the hand of Miss Fairfax. In the depth of his heart there was a tenacious conviction that Bessie Fairfax loved him best in the world—with a love that had grown with her growth and strengthened with her strength, and would maintain itself independent of his failure or success in life. But oh, that word failure! It touched him with a dreadful chill. He turned pale at it, and resolutely averted his mind from the idea.

He left young Christie with as little ceremony as he had rejoined him, and walked home to Brook, entering the garden from the wood. The first sight that met him was Bessie Fairfax standing alone under the beeches. At the moment he thought it was an illusion, for she was all in bluish-gray amongst the shadows; but at the sound of the gate she turned quickly and came forward to meet him.

"I was just beginning to feel disappointed," said she impulsively. "Lady Latimer brought me over to say good-bye, and we were told you had gone to Littlemire. She is in the sitting-room with your mother. I came out here."

Harry's face flushed so warmly that he had no need to express his joy in words. What a lucky event it was that he had met Mr. Wiley, and had been turned back from his visit to his old tutor! He was fatigued with excitement and his hurried walk, and he invited Bessie to sit with him under the beeches where they used to sit watching the little stream as it ran by at their feet. Bessie was nothing loath—she was thinking that this was the last time they should meet for who could tell how long—and she complied with all her old child-like submission to him, and a certain sweet appealing womanly dignity, which, without daunting Harry at all, compelled him to remember that she was not any longer a child.

The young people were not visible from the sitting-room. Lady Latimer's head was turned another way when Harry and Bessie met, but the instant she missed her young charge she got up and looked out of the lattice. The boles and sweeping branches of the great beeches hid the figures at their feet, and Mrs. Musgrave, observing that dear Bessie was very fond of the manor-garden, and had probably strolled into the wilderness, my lady accepted the explanation and resumed her seat and her patience.

Meanwhile, Harry did not waste his precious opportunity. He had this advantage, that when he saw Bessie he saw only the fair face that he worshipped, and thought nothing of her adventitious belongings, while in her absence he saw her surrounded by them, and himself set at a vast conventional distance. He said that the four years since she left Beechhurst seemed but as one day, now they were together again in the old familiar places, and she replied that she was glad he thought so, for she thought so too. "I still call the Forest home, though I do not pine in exile. I return to it the day after to-morrow," she told him.

"Good little philosophical Bessie!" cried Harry, and relapsed into his normal state of masculine superiority.

Then they talked of themselves, past, present, and future—now with animation, now again with dropped and saddened voices. The afternoon sun twinkled in the many-paned lattices of the old house in the background, and the brook sang on as it had sung from immemorial days before a stone of the house was built. Harry gazed rather mournfully at the ivied walls during one of their sudden silences, and then he told Bessie that the proprietor was ill, and the manor would have a new owner by and by.

"I trust he will not want to turn out my father and mother and pull it down, but he is an improving landlord, and has built some excellent ugly farmsteads on his other property. I have a clinging to it, and the doctor says it would be well for me had I been born and bred in almost any other place."

Bessie sighed, and said deprecatingly, "Harry, you look as strong as a castle. If it was Mr. Christie they were always warning, I should not wonder, but you!"

"But me! Little Christie looks as though a good puff of wind might blow him away, and he is as tough as a pin-wire. I stand like a tower, and they tell me the foundations are sinking. It sounds like a fable to frighten me."

"Harry dear, it is not serious; don't believe it. Everybody has to take a little care. You must give up London and hard study if they try you. We will all help you to bear the disappointment: I know it would be cruel, but if you must, you must! Leaning towers, I've heard, stand hundreds of years, and serve their purpose as well as towers that stand erect."

"Ah, Bessie, cunning little comforter! Tell me which is the worse—a life that is a failure or death?" said Harry, watching the gyrations of a straw that the eddies of the rivulet were whirling by.

"Oh, death, death—there is no remedy for death." Bessie shuddered. There was repulsion in her face as well as awe.

Harry felt surprised: this was his own feeling, but women, he thought, had more natural resignation. Not so, however, his young comrade. She loved life, and hoped to see good days. He reminded her that she had lost both her parents early.

"Yes," she said, "but my other father and mother prevented me suffering from their loss. I scarcely recollect it, I was such a happy child. It would be different now if any of those, young like myself, that I have grown up with and love very much, were to pass out of sight, and I had to think that nowhere in the world could I find them any more."

"It would touch you more personally. There was a young fellow drowned at Oxford whom I knew: we were aghast for a day, but the next we were on the river again. I recollect how bitterly you cried the morning your father was buried; all the afternoon you refused to be comforted, even by a sweet black puppy that I had brought over for the purpose, but in the evening you took to it and carried it about in your pinafore. Oh, God and time are very good to us. We lose one love, another steps in to fill the void, and soon we do not remember that ever there was a void."

Bessie was gazing straight away into heaven, her eyes full of sunshiny tears, thoughts of the black puppy struggling with more pathetic thoughts. "We are very dismal, Harry," said she presently. "Is the moral of it how easily we should be consoled for each other's loss? Would you not pity me if I died? I should almost die of your death, I think."

"And if I am to live and never do any good, never to be famous, Bessie? If I come to you some day beaten and jaded—no honors and glories, as I used to promise—"

"Why, Harry, unless it were your mother no one would be kinder to you than I would," she said with exquisite tenderness, turning to look in his face, for he spoke in a strained, low voice as if it hurt him.

He took her hands, she not refusing to yield them, and said, "It is my belief that we are as fond of each other as ever we were, Bessie, and that neither of us will ever care half so much for anybody else?"

"It is my belief too, Harry." Bessie's eyes shone and her tongue trembled, but how happy she was! And he bowed his head for several minutes in silence.

There was a rustling in the bushes behind them, a bird perhaps, but the noise recalled them to the present world—that and a whisper from Bessie, smiling again for pure content: "Harry dear, we must not make fools of ourselves now; my lady might descend upon us at any moment."

Harry sighed, and looked up with great content. "It is a compact, Bessie," said he, holding out his right hand.

"Trust me, Harry," said she, and laid hers softly in his open palm.

Mrs. Musgrave's voice was heard from the sitting-room window: "Bessie! Bessie dear! where are you?—Lady Latimer wishes to go. Make haste—come in." A bit of Bessie's blue-gray dress had betrayed her whereabouts. And lo! the two young people emerged from the shelter of the trees, and quite at their leisure sauntered up the lawn, talking with a sweet gay confidence, just as they used to talk when they were boy and girl, and Bessie came to tea at Brook, and they were the best friends in the world. Harry's mother guessed in a moment what had happened. Lady Latimer caught one glance and loftily averted her observation.

They had to go round to the hall-door, and they did not hurry themselves. They took time to assure one another how deep was their happiness, their mutual confidence—to promise a frequent exchange of letters, and to fear that they would not meet again before Bessie left Fairfield. Lady Latimer was seated in the carriage when they appeared in sight. Bessie got in meekly, and was bidden to be quicker. She smiled at Harry, who looked divinely glad, and as they drove off rapidly recollected that she had not said good-bye to his mother.

"Never mind—Harry will explain," she said aloud: evidently her thoughts were astray.

"Explain what? I am afraid there are many things that need explanation," said my lady austerely, and not another word until they reached home. But Bessie's heart was in perfect peace, and her countenance reflected nothing but the sunshine.



CHAPTER XLIV.

A LONG, DULL DAY.

That evening Bessie Fairfax was charming, she was so happy. She was good and gracious again to Mr. Cecil Burleigh, and she was never prettier. He basked in her content, without trying to understand it—thought more than ever what a buoyant, sweet-tempered woman she would be, to give a man rest and refreshment at home, whose active life must be spent in the arid ways of the political world. Dora had her conjectures, and whispered them, but Bessie made no revelation, gave no confidences.

It must be ages before her league with Harry Musgrave could be concluded, and therefore let it be still, as it had been always, suspected, but not confessed—unless she were over-urged by Harry's rival and her northern kinsfolk and friends. Then she would declare her mind, but not before. Lady Latimer asked no questions. Her woman's discernment was not at fault, but she had her own opinion of youthful constancy and early loves and early vows, and believed that when they were not to be approved they were to be most judiciously ignored.

The next day was so fully occupied with engagements made beforehand that Bessie had no chance of going again to Beechhurst, but she did not make a grief of it—she could not have made a grief of anything just then. On the last morning, however, to her dear surprise, the doctor stopped at the door for a parting word of her mother's love and his own, and their hopes that she would soon be coming amongst them again; and when she went away an hour later she went as joyous as she had come, though she knew that a report of her untoward behavior had gone before her, and that the probabilities were she would enter into an atmosphere of clouds the moment she reached Abbotsmead.

But it did not prove so. Lady Latimer had written cautiously and kindly—had not been able to give any assurance of Mr. Cecil Burleigh's success, but had a feeling that it must come to pass. Elizabeth was a sweet girl, though she had the self-will of a child; in many points she was more of a child than my lady had supposed—in her estimate of individuals, and of their weight and position in the world, for instance—but this was a fault that knowledge of the world would cure.

Mr. Fairfax was pleased to welcome his granddaughter home again, and especially pleased to see no sadness in her return. The Forest was ever so much nearer now—not out of her world at all. Bessie had travelled that road once, and would travel it again. Every experience shortens such roads, lessens such difficulties between true friends. Bessie's acquaintances came to call upon her, and she talked of the pleasure it had been to her to revisit the scenes of her childhood, of the few changes that had happened there since she came away, and of the hospitality of Lady Latimer.

The lime trees were turning yellow and thin of leaf; there was a fire all day in the octagon parlor. It was autumn in Woldshire, soon to be winter. It seemed to Bessie on her return like resuming the dull routine of a life that had gone on for a long while. Mrs. Stokes, as her nearest and most neighborly neighbor, often ran across the park of an afternoon, but Bessie's best delight was at post-time in the morning. Mr. Fairfax never came down stairs to breakfast, and she had Harry Musgrave's letters all to herself, undiscovered and undisturbed.

The squire never regained his strength or his perfect moral control, and the peculiar tempers of his previous life seemed to be exaggerated as his natural force decayed. Mr. Oliver Smith was his most frequent and welcome visitor. They talked together of events past and of friends long since dead. Perhaps this was a little wearisome and painful now and then to Mr. Oliver Smith, who retained his youthful sprightliness amidst more serious sentiments. He would have had his old friend contemplate the great future that was approaching, instead of the unalterable past.

One day he said to Bessie, "I think your grandfather wanders in his mind sometimes; I fear he is failing."

"I don't know," was her reflective answer. "His thoughts often run on his sister Dorothy and Lady Latimer: I hear him mutter to himself the same words often, 'It was a lifelong mistake, Olympia.' But that is true, is it not? He is as clear and collected as ever when he dictates to me a letter on business; he makes use of me as his secretary."

"Well, well! Let us hope, then, God may spare him to us for many years to come," said Mr. Oliver Smith, with that conventional propriety of speech which helps us through so many hard moments when feeling does not dictate anything real to say.

Bessie dwelt for some days after on that pious aspiration of her grandfather's old friend, but the ache and tedium of life did not return upon her. Her sense of duty and natural affection were very strong. She told herself that if it were her lot to watch for many years beside this dwindling flame, it was a lot of God's giving, not of her own seeking, and therefore good. The letters that came to her from Beechhurst and Caen breathed nothing but encouragement to love and patience, and Harry Musgrave's letters were a perpetual fount of refreshment. What delightful letters they were! He told, her whatever he thought would interest or amuse her or make his life palpable to her. He sent her books, he sent her proof-sheets to be read and returned: if Bessie had not loved him so devotedly and all that belonged to him, she might have thought his literature a tax on her leisure. It was a wonder to all who knew her (without knowing her secret fund of joy) what a cheerful countenance she wore through this dreary period of her youth. Within the house she had no support but the old servants, and little change or variety from without. Those kind old ladies, Miss Juliana and Miss Charlotte Smith, were very good in coming to see her, and always indulged her in a talk of Lady Latimer and Fairfield; Miss Burleigh visited her occasionally for a day, but Lady Angleby kept out of the shadow on principle—she could not bear to see it lengthening. She enjoyed life very much, and would not be reminded of death if she could help it. Her nephew spent Christmas at Norminster, and paid more than one visit to Abbotsmead. Miss Fairfax was as glad as ever to see him. He came like a breath of fresh air from the living outer world, and made no pretensions to what he knew she had not to give. The engagement between Miss Julia Gardiner and Mr. Brotherton had fallen through, for some reason that was never fully explained, and Miss Burleigh began to think her dear brother would marry poor Julia after all.

Another of Bessie's pleasures was a day in Minster Court. One evening she brought home a photograph of the three boys, and the old squire put on his spectacles to look at it. She had ceased to urge reconciliation, but she still hoped for it earnestly; and it came in time, but not at all as she expected. One day—it was in the early spring—she was called to her grandfather's room, and there she found Mr. John Short sitting in council and looking exceedingly discontented. The table was strewn with parchments and papers, and she was invited to take a seat in front of the confusion. Then an abrupt question was put to her: Would she prefer to have settled upon her the Abbey Lodge, which Colonel Stokes now occupied as a yearly tenant, or a certain house in the suburbs of Norminster going out towards Brentwood?

"In what event?" she asked, coloring confusedly.

"In the event of my death or your own establishment in life," said her grandfather. "Your uncle Laurence will bring his family here, and I do not imagine that you will choose to be one with them long; you will prefer a home of your own."

The wave of color passed from Bessie's face. "Dear grandpapa, don't talk of such remote events; it is time enough to think of changes and decide when the time comes," said she.

"That is no answer, Elizabeth. Prudent people make their arrangements in anticipation of changes, and their will in anticipation of death. Speak plainly: do you like the lodge as a residence, or the vicinity of Norminster?"

"Dear grandpapa, if you were no longer here I should go home to the Forest," Bessie said, and grew very pale.

The old squire neither moved nor spoke for several minutes. He stared out of the window, then he glanced at the lawyer and said, "You hear, Short? now you will be convinced. She has not taken root enough to care to live here any longer. She will go back to the Forest; all this time she has been in exile, and cut off from those whom alone she loves. Why should I keep her waiting at Abbotsmead for a release that may be slow to come? Go now, Elizabeth, go now, if to stay wearies you;" and he waved her to the door imperatively.

Bessie rose trembling and left the room, tears and indignation struggling for the mastery. "Oh, grandpapa! why will you say such things?" was all her remonstrance, but she felt that there are some wrongs in this life very hard to bear.

Mr. John Short sat mute for some time after the young lady's departure. The squire gloomed sorrowfully: "From first to last my course is nothing but disappointment."

"I wish, sir, that you could be prevailed on to see Mr. Laurence?" suggested the lawyer. "His wife is a very good little lady, and the boys you might be proud of. Pray, sir, give yourself that chance of happiness for your closing days."

"I had other plans. There will be no marriage, Short: I understand Elizabeth. In warning me that she will return to the Forest when I am gone, she just tells me that my hopes of her and Burleigh are all moonshine. Well, let Laurence come. Let him come and take possession with his children; they can leave me my corner of the house in peace. I shall not need it very long. And Elizabeth can go home when she pleases."

Mr. Fairfax's resentment was very bitter against Bessie, at first, for the frank exposition she had made of her future intentions. She had meant no unkindness, but simple honesty. He did not take it so, and when her customary duty and service brought her next into his presence he made her feel how deeply she had offended. He rejected her offer to read to him, put aside her helping hand, and said he would have Jonquil to assist him; she need not remain. He uttered no accusation against her and no reproach; he gave her no opportunity of softening her abrupt announcement; he just set her at a distance, as it were, and made himself unapproachable. Bessie betook herself in haste to her white parlor, to hide the blinding tears in her eyes and the mortification in her heart. "And he wonders that so few love him!" she said to herself, not without anger even in her pitiful yearning to be friends again.

A week of alienation followed this scene, and Bessie was never more miserable. Day by day she tried to resume her loving care of her grandfather, and day by day she was coldly repulsed. Jonquil, Macky, Mrs. Betts, all sympathized in silence; their young lady was less easy to condole with now than when she was fresh from school. The old squire was as wretched as he made his granddaughter. He had given permission for his son to come to Abbotsmead, and he seemed in no haste to embrace the permission. When he came at last, he brought little Justus with him, but he had to say that it was only for a few hours. In fact, his wife was extremely unwilling to abandon their happy, independent home in the Minster Court, and he was equally unwilling to force her inclination. Mr. Fairfax replied, "You know best," and gazed at his grandson, who, from between his father's knees, gazed at him again without any advance towards good-fellowship. A formal reconciliation ensued, but that was all. For the kindness that springs out of a warm, affectionate nature the old squire had to look to Elizabeth, and without any violent transition they glided back into their former habits and relations. Bessie was saddened a little by her late experiences, but she was not quite new to the lesson that the world is a place of unsatisfied hopes and defeated intentions.

Mr. John Short was often to and fro between Abbotsmead and Norminster during that summer, and an idea prevailed in the household that the squire was altering his will again. His son Frederick had died intestate, and the squire had taken possession of what he left. The poor lady in seclusion at Caen died also about this time, and a large addition was made to Mr. Fairfax's income—so large that his loss by the Durham lawsuit was more than balanced. The lawyer looked far from pleasant while transacting his client's business. It was true that Mr. Frederick Fairfax had left no will, but he had expressed certain distinct intentions, and these intentions, to the indignant astonishment of many persons, his father would not carry out. Mr. Forbes talked to him of the sacredness of his son's wishes, but the squire had a purpose for the money, and was obstinate in his refusal to relinquish it. Some people decided that thus he meant to enrich his granddaughter without impoverishing Abbotsmead for his successor, but Mr. John Short's manner to the young lady was tinctured with a respectful compassion that did not augur well for her prospects.

Bessie paid very little heed to the speculations of which she could not fail to hear something. So long as her grandfather was tolerably kind to her she asked no more from the present, and she left the future to take care of itself. But it cannot be averred that he was invariably kind. There seemed to lurk in his mind a sense of injury, which he visited upon her in sarcastic gibes and allusions to the Forest, taunting her with impatience to have done with him and begone to her dearer friends. Bessie resented this for a little while, but by and by she ceased to be affected, and treated it as the pettishness of a sick old man, never used to be considerate for others. He kept her very much confined and gave her scant thanks for her care of him. If Mr. Cecil Burleigh admired patience and forbearance in a woman, he had the opportunity of studying a fair example of both in her. He pitied her secretly, but she put on no martyr-airs. "It is nothing. Oh no, grandpapa is not difficult—it is only his way. Most people are testy when they are ill," she would plead, and she believed what she said. The early sense of repulsion and disappointment once overcome, she was too sensible to bewail the want of unselfish affection where it had never existed before.

The squire had certain habits of long standing—habits of coldness, distance, reserve, and he never changed materially. He survived through the ensuing autumn and winter, and finally sank during the north-easterly weather of the following spring, just two years after the death of his son Frederick. Jonquil and Macky, who had been all his life about him, were his most acceptable attendants. He did not care to have his son Laurence with him, and when the children came over it was not by his invitation. Mr. Forbes visited him almost daily, and Mr. Cecil Burleigh came down from London twice at his request. Bessie remitted no act of tender thoughtfulness; and one day, shortly before the end, he said to her, "You are a good girl, Elizabeth." She smiled and said, "Am I, grandpapa?" but his persistent coldness had brought back her shy reticence, and neither said any more. Perhaps there was compunction in the old man's mind—the cast of his countenance was continually that of regret—but there was no drawing near in heart or confidence ever again, and the squire died in the isolation of feeling with which living he had chosen to surround himself. The world, his friends, neighbors, and servants said that he died in honor respected by all who knew him; but for long and long after Bessie could never think of his death without tears—not because he had died, but because so little sorrow followed him.



CHAPTER XLV.

THE SQUIRE'S WILL.

Throughout his life Mr. Fairfax had guided his actions by a certain rule of justice that satisfied himself. The same rule was evident in his last will. His granddaughter had given him to understand that she should return to the Forest and cast in her lot with the humble friends from amongst whom he had taken her, and the provision he made for her was consonant with that determination. He bequeathed to her a sum of five thousand pounds—a sufficient portion, as he considered, for that rank in life—and to Mr. Cecil Burleigh he bequeathed the handsome fortune that it was intended she should bring him in marriage. He had the dower without the bride, and though Lady Angleby and his sister quietly intimated to astonished friends that they had good reason to hope Miss Fairfax would ultimately be no loser by her grandfather's will, her uncle Laurence was not the only person by many who judged her unkindly and unfairly treated. But it was impossible to dispute the old squire's ability to dispose of his property, or his right to dispose of it as he pleased. He had been mainly instrumental in raising Mr. Cecil Burleigh to the position he occupied, and there was a certain obligation incurred to support him in it. If Mr. Fairfax had chosen to make a son of him, no one had a right to complain. No one did complain; the expression of opinion was extremely guarded.

Bessie was informed of the terms of her grandfather's will in the first shock of surprise; afterward her uncle Laurence reflected that it would have been wise to keep them from her, but the deed was done. She received the news without emotion: she blushed, put up her eyebrows, and smiled as she said, "Then I am a poor young woman again." She saw at once what was absurd, pathetic, vexatious in her descent from the dignity of riches, but she was not angry. She never uttered a word of blame or reproach against her grandfather, and when it was indignantly recalled to her that Mr. Cecil Burleigh was put into possession of what ought to have been hers, she answered, "There is no ought in the matter. Grandpapa had a lively interest in Mr. Cecil Burleigh's career, for the sake of the country as well as for his own sake, and if you ask me my sentiments I must confess that I feel the money grandpapa has left him is well bestowed. It would be a shame that such a man should be hampered by mean cares and insufficient fortune."

"Oh, if you are satisfied that is enough," was the significant rejoinder, and Lady Angleby's hopes had a wider echo.

To Mr. Cecil Burleigh his old friend's bequest was a boon to be thankful for, and he was profoundly thankful. It set him above troublesome anxieties and lifted his private life into the sphere of comfort. But his first visit to Abbotsmead and first meeting with Miss Fairfax after it was communicated to him tried his courage not a little. The intimacy that had been kept up, and even improved during Mr. Fairfax's decline, had given him no grounds for hoping better success with Elizabeth as a lover than before, and yet he was convinced that in leaving him this fine fortune the squire had continued to indulge his expectations of their ultimate union. That Elizabeth would be inclined towards him in the slightest degree by the fact of his gaining the inheritance that she had forfeited, he never for one moment dreamed; the contrary might be possible, but not that. Amongst the many and important duties and interests that engaged him now he had neither leisure nor desire for sentimental philandering. He was a very busy man of the world, and wished for the rest of a home. Insensibly his best thoughts reverted to his dear Julia, never married, still his very good friend. He approved the sweet rosy face of Elizabeth Fairfax, her bright spirit and loving, unselfish disposition, but he found it impossible to flatter himself that she would ever willingly become his wife. Lady Angleby insisted that honor demanded a renewal of his offer, but Elizabeth never gave him an opportunity; and there was an end of his uncertainties when she said one day to his sister (after receiving an announcement of her own approaching marriage to Mr. Forbes), "And there is nothing now to stand between your brother and Miss Julia Gardiner. I am truly glad grandpapa left him an independence, they have been so faithful to each other."

Miss Burleigh looked up surprised, as if she thought Bessie must be laughing at them. And Bessie was laughing. "Not quite constant perhaps, but certainly faithful," she persisted. But Mr. Cecil Burleigh had probably appreciated her blossoming youth more kindly than his dear Julia had appreciated her autumnal widower. Bessie meant to convey that neither had any right to complain of the other, and that was true. Miss Burleigh carried Miss Fairfax's remarks to her brother, and after that they were privately agreed that it would be poor Julia after all.