"I thought you had a very crestfallen look as you came in," said Emily.
"I hope," said Mrs. Lawrence, "that you made the people understand who you were before you left."
Bessie said nothing; but Frederick was struck by the spirit in which she had listened to his misadventures, so different from the one that Miss Marshall had displayed. The one he had always thought a grave and serious character, and the other a light and childish one. But Miss Marshall seemed to find an endless source of amusement in the mortification of other people's vanity, while Bessie was so occupied with the painful position in which he had been placed that she could hardly smile, easily as her smiles generally came, at Frederick's imitation of the pompous and ignorant landlord.
"Bessie is a sweet little girl," said he to Emily, at the close of the evening.
"I knew you would like her," was Emily's pleased reply.
The pleasant weeks the party spent at Lake George served to confirm Frederick's opinion, and the liking that commenced that first evening after his return went on increasing, until in a few years it ended, as most stories and novels do, in a wedding.
LETTERS LEFT AT THE PASTRY-COOK'S:
BEING THE CLANDESTINE CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN KITTY CLOVER AT SCHOOL, AND HER "DEAR, DEAR FRIEND" IN TOWN.
EDITED BY HORACE MAYHEW.