s escort. The interval he was on his way to spend in
Paris--on a private errand for the government, to a highly honorable
member of which he was private secretary.
Mr. Fairfax's letter to madame announced in simple terms the object of
Mr. Cecil Burleigh's mission to Bayeux, and as the gentleman recited it
by word of mouth she grew freezingly formal. To lose Bessie would be a
loss that she had been treating as deferred. Certainly, also, the ways
of the English are odd! To send the young lady on a two days' journey
with this strange gentleman, who was no relative, was impossible. So
well brought up as Bessie had been since she came to Caen, she would
surely refuse the alternative, and decide to remain at school. Madame
replied to the announcement that Miss Fairfax would appear in a few
minutes, and would of course speak for herself. But Bessie was in no
haste to meet the envoy from Kirkham after parting with her beloved
Harry, and when a quarter of an hour had elapsed, and there was still no
sign of her coming, Babette was despatched to the top of the house to
bring her down to the interview.
Mr. Cecil Burleigh had taken a chair opposite the door, and he watched
for its reopening with a visible and vivid interest. It opened, and
Bessie walked in with that stately erectness of gait which was
characteristic of the women of her race. "As upright as a Fairfax," was
said of them in more senses than one. She was blushing, and her large
dark blue eyes had the softness of recent tears. She curtseyed,
school-girl fashion, to her grandfather's envoy, and her graceful proud
humility set him instantly at a distance. His programme was to be
lordly, affable, tenderly patronizing, but his dark cheek flushed, and
self-possessed as he was, both by nature and habit, he was suddenly at a
loss how to address this stiff princess about whom he had expected to
find some rags of Cophetua still hanging. But the rags were all gone,
and the little gypsy of the Forest was become a lady.
Madame intervened with needful explanations. Bessie comprehended the
gist of the embassage very readily. She must take heart for an immediate
encounter with her grandfather and all her other difficulties, or she
must resign herself to a fourth year of exile and of school. Her mind
was at once made up. Since the morning--how long ago it seemed!--an
ardent wish to return to England had begun to glow in her imagination.
She wanted her real life to begin. These dull
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