"This is as it should be; and how are you, my dear?" said Mr. Carnegie, drawing her affectionately to him.
"Is there any need to ask, Thomas? Could she have looked bonnier if she had never left us?" said his wife fondly.
Blushing, beaming, laughing, Bessie came in. How small the house seemed, and how full! There was young Christie's picture of her smiling above the mantelpiece, there was the doctor's old bureau and the old leathern chair. Bridget and the younger branches appeared, some of them shy of Bessie, and Totty particularly, who was the baby when she went away. They crowded the stairs, the narrow hall. "Make room there!" cried Jack, imperative amidst the fuss; and her mother conveyed the trembling girl up to her own dear old triangular nest under the thatch. The books, the watery miniatures, the Oriental bowl and dishes were all in their places. "Oh, mother, how happy I am to see it again!" cried she. And they had a few tears to wink away, and with them the fancied forgetfulnesses of the absent years.
It was a noisy dinner in comparison with the serene dulness Bessie was used to, but not noisier than it was entitled to be with seven children at table, ranging from four to fourteen, for Sunday was the one day of the week when Mr. Carnegie dined with his children, and it was his good pleasure to dine with them all. So many bright faces and white pinafores were a sweet spectacle to Bessie, who was so merry that Totty was quite tamed by the time the dessert of ripe fruit came; and would sit on "Sissy's" lap, and apply juicy grapes to "Sissy's" lips—then as "Sissy" opened them, suddenly popped the purple globes into her own little mouth, which made everybody laugh, and was evidently a good old family joke.
Dinner over, Mr. Carnegie adjourned to his study, where his practice was to make up for short and often disturbed nights by an innocent nap on Sunday afternoon. "We will go into the drawing-room, Bessie, as we always do. Totty says a hymn with the others now, and will soon begin to say her catechism, God bless her!" Thus Mrs. Carnegie.
Bessie had now a boy clinging to either arm. They put her down in a corner of the sofa, their mother occupying the other, and Totty throned between them. There was a little desultory talk and seeking of places, and then the four elder children, standing round the table, read a chapter, verse for verse. Then followed the recitation of the catechism in that queer, mechanical gabble that Bessie recollected so well. "If you stop to think you are sure to break down," was still the warning. After that Jack said the collect and epistle for the day, and Willie and Tom said the gospel, and the lesser ones said psalms and hymns and spiritual songs; and by the time this duty was accomplished Bridget had done dinner, and arrived in holiday gown and ribbons to resume her charge. In a few minutes Bessie was left alone with her mother. The boys went to consult a favorite pear-tree in the orchard, and as Jack was seen an hour or two later perched aloft amongst its gnarled branches with a book, it is probable that he chose that retreat to pursue undisturbed his seafaring studies by means of Marryat's novels.
"I like to keep up old-fashioned customs, Bessie," said her mother. "I know the dear children have been taught their duty, and if they forget it sometimes there is always a hope they may return. Mrs. Wiley and Lady Latimer have asked for them to attend the Bible classes, but their father was strongly against it; and I think, with him, that if they are not quite so cleverly taught at home, there is a feeling in having learnt at their mother's knees which will stay by them longer. It is growing quite common for young ladies in Beechhurst to have classes in the evening for servant-girls and others, but I cannot say I favor them: the girls get together gossipping and stopping out late, and the teachers are so set up with notions of superior piety that they are quite spoilt. And they do break out in the ugliest hats and clothes—faster than the gayest of the young ladies who don't pretend to be so over-righteous. You have not fallen into that way, dear Bessie?"
"Oh no. I do not even teach in the Sunday-school at Kirkham. It is very small. Mr. Forbes does not encourage the attendance of children whose parents are able to instruct them themselves."
"I am glad to hear it. I do not approve of this system of relieving parents of their private duties. Mr. Wiley carries it to excess, and will not permit any poor woman to become a member of the coal-and-clothing club who does not send her children to Sunday-school: the doctor has refused his subscription in consequence, and divides it amongst the recusants. For a specimen of Miss Myra Robb's evening-class teaching we have a girl who provokes Bridget almost past her patience: she cannot say her duty to her neighbor in the catechism, and her practice of it is so imperfect that your father begs me, the next time I engage a scullery-wench, to ascertain that she is not infected with the offensive pious conceit that distinguishes poor Eliza. Our own dear children are affectionate and good, on the whole. Jack has made up his mind to the sea, and Willie professes that he will be a doctor, like his father; he could not be better. They are both at Hampton School yet, but we have them over for Sunday while the summer weather continues."
When Bessie had heard the family news and all about the children, she had to tell her own, and very interesting her mother found it. She had to answer numerous questions concerning Mr. Laurence Fairfax, his wife and boys, and then Mrs. Carnegie inquired about that fine gentleman of whose pretensions to Miss Fairfax Lady Latimer had warned her. Bessie blushed rather warmly, and told what facts there were to tell, and she now learnt for the first time that her wooing was a matter of arrangement and policy. The information was not gratifying, to judge from the hot fire of her face and the tone of her rejoinder. "Mr. Cecil Burleigh is a fascinating person—so I am assured—but I don't think I was the least bit in love," she averred with energetic scorn. Her mother smiled, and did not say so much in reply as Bessie thought she might.