Presently they went into the orchard, and insensibly the subject was renewed. Bessie remembered afterward saying many things that she never meant to say. She mentioned how she had first seen Mr. Cecil Burleigh at the Fairfield wedding devoted to a most lovely young lady whom she had seen again at Ryde, and had known as Miss Julia Gardiner. "I thought they were engaged," she said. "I am sure they were lovers for a long while."
"You were under that impression throughout?" Mrs. Carnegie suggested interrogatively.
"Yes. From the day I saw them together at Ryde I had no other thought. He was grandpapa's friend, grandpapa forwarded his election for Norminster, and as I was the young lady of the house at Abbotsmead, it was not singular that he should be kind and attentive to me, was it? I am quite certain that he was as little in love with me as I was with him, though he did invite me to be his wife. I felt very much insulted that he should suppose me such a child as not to know that he did not care for me; it was not in that way he had courted Miss Julia Gardiner."
"It is a much commoner thing than you imagine for a man to be unable to marry as his heart would dictate. But he is not for that to remain single all his life, is he?" said Mrs. Carnegie.
"Perhaps not; I should respect him more if he did. I will remain single all my life unless I find somebody to love me first and best," said Bessie with the airy assurance of the romantic age.
"Well, dear, and I trust you may, for affection is the great sweetener of life, and it must be hard getting along without it. But here is father."
Mr. Carnegie, his nap over, had seen his wife and Bessie from the study-window. He drew Bessie's hand through his arm and asked what they were so earnest in debate upon. Not receiving an immediate answer, he went on to remark to his wife that their little Bessie was not spoilt by her life among her high-born friends. "For anything I can see, she is our dear Bessie still."
"So she is, Thomas—self-will and her own opinion and all," replied her mother, looking fondly in her face.
Bessie laughed and blushed. "You never expected perfection in me, nor too much docility," she said.
The doctor patted her hand, and told her she was good enough for human nature's daily companionship. Then he began to give her news of their neighbors. "It falls out fortunately that it is holiday-time. Young Christie is here: you know him? He told us how he had met you at some grand house in the winter, where he went to paint a picture: the lady had too little expression to please him, and he was not satisfied with his work. She was, fortunately, and her husband too, for he had a hundred pounds for the picture—like coining money his father says. He is very good to the old people, and makes them share his prosperity—a most excellent son." Bessie listened for another name of an excellent son. It came. "And Harry Musgrave is at Brook for a whiff of country air. That young man works and plays very hard: he must take heed not to overdo it."