d on
their tour, knapsack on back and walking-stick in hand. They pulled off
their gray wideawakes and stared about, lowering their manly tones as
they talked; stood a few minutes considering the length, breadth,
height, and beauty of general effect in the nave and the choir, and then
descended the steps, and in the true national spirit of inquiry walked
straight to the stream of sunshine that revealed a door opening into
some place unseen. Bessie, sitting in retired shade, escaped their
observation. She laughed to herself with an inexpressible gladness. It
was certainly not by accident that Harry was here. She would have liked
to slip along the aisle in his shadow, to have called him by his name,
but the presence of his two unknown companions, and some diffidence in
herself, restrained her until the opportunity was gone, and he
disappeared, inveigled by the sacristan into making the regular tour of
the building. She knew every word he would hear, every antiquity he
would admire. She saw him in the choir turning over the splendid
manuscript books of Holy Writ and of the Mass which were in use in the
church when the kings of England were still dukes of Normandy; saw him
carried off into the crypt where is shown the pyx of those long-ago
times, a curious specimen of mediaeval work in brass; and after that she
lost him.

Would they climb the dome, those enterprising young men? Bessie took it
for granted that they would. But she must see dear Harry again; and oh
for a word with him! Perhaps he would seek her out--he might have learnt
from her mother where she was at Bayeux--or perhaps he would not _dare_?
Not that Harry's character had ever lacked daring where his wishes were
concerned; still, recollecting the trouble that had come of his former
unauthorized visit, he might deny himself for her sake. It was not
probable, and Bessie would not have bidden him deny himself; she would
willingly go through the same trouble again for the same treat. Why had
she not taken courage to arrest his progress? How foolish, how heartless
it would appear to-morrow if the chance were not renewed to her to-day!
She would not have done so silly a thing three years ago--her impulse to
follow him, to call out his name, would have been irresistible--but now
she felt shy of him. A plague on her shyness!

Bessie's little temper had the better of her for a minute or two. She
was very angry with herself, would never forgive herself, she said, if
b