“I wonder that you care to let Bessie visit at The Grange, when Eleanor Sartoris treated you so badly.” And then she added, “I think she is very much to blame, too, for her behavior to her stepson. Margaret Tillotson tells me that he is an honest, good-hearted fellow, though not very clever, but that want of appreciation has made him shy and awkward.”
But he had been able to satisfy his wife without much difficulty. All their married life there had never been a shadow of a doubt between them; her calm, reasonable judgment had wholly approved her husband’s conduct on all occasions; whatever he did or said had been right in her eyes, and she had brought up her daughters to think the same.
“Well, do you know, Bessie,” he said playfully, “I have more reasons than one for wishing you to go to The Grange? I have taken a fancy to Miss Sefton, and I want her mother to be acquainted with my daughter; and I think it will be good for you to extend your knowledge of the world. You girls are tied too much to your mother’s apron-strings, and you must learn to do without her sometimes.”
This was all very well, but though Bessie smilingly accepted this explanation of her father’s motives in permitting her to go to Oatlands, she was clever enough to know that more lay behind.
Dr. Lambert had long ago forgiven the injury that had been done to him. His nature was a generous one; good had come out of evil, and he was tolerant enough to feel a kindly interest in Mrs. Sefton as an old friend. It is true she had created her own troubles, but in spite of that he could be sorry for her. Like a foolish woman she had built her life’s hopes upon a shifting, sandy foundation; she had looked on the outward appearance, and a fair exterior had blinded her to the hollowness beneath. The result was bitterness and disappointment.
“I should like her to see our Bessie,” he had said to his wife. “Bessie is just like a sunbeam; she will do her good, and even if things are different from what she sees at home, it will do her no harm to know how other people live. Our girls are good girls, but I do not want them to live like nuns behind a grating; let them go out into the world a little, and enlarge their minds. If it were Christine, I might hesitate before such an experiment, but I have perfect confidence in Bessie.”
And his wife’s answer to this had been:
“I am quite sure you are right, Herbert, and I am perfectly willing to let Bessie visit your old friend.” And so the matter ended. The doctor got his way as usual, simply by wishing for it.
The drive was a long one, but it seemed short to Bessie, and she was quite sorry when it was over.
“Thank you, father dear, it has been such a treat,” she said, with a loving little squeeze of his arm; and then she ran in to find her mother.