ow."

She released it from its envelope, smelt it, and laid it down
comfortably in front of the Sevres china inkstand. All the permanent
furniture of the writing-table was of Sevres china. Bessie thought it
grotesque, and had no notion of the value of it.

"The big basket may be put aside?" suggested Mrs. Betts, and her young
lady did not gainsay her. But when the shabby little white enamelled box
was threatened, she commanded that that should be left--she had had it
so long she could not bear to part with it. It had been the joint-gift
of Mr. and Mrs. Carnegie on her twelfth birthday.

Released, at length, from Mrs. Betts's respectful, observant presence,
Bessie began to look about her and consider her new habitation. A sense
of exaltation and a sense of bondage possessed her. These pretty, quaint
rooms were hers, then? It was not a day-dream--it was real. She was at
Abbotsmead--at Kirkham. Her true home-nest under the eaves at Beechhurst
was hundreds of miles away: farther still was the melancholy garden in
the Rue St. Jean.

Opposite the parlor window was the fireplace, the lofty mantelshelf
being surmounted by a circular mirror, so inclined as to reflect the
landscape outside. Upon the panelled walls hung numerous specimens of
the elegant industry of Bessie's predecessors--groups of flowers
embroidered on tarnished white satin; shepherds and shepherdesses with
shell-pink painted faces and raiment of needlework in many colors;
pallid sketches of scenery; crayon portraits of youths and maidens of
past generations, none younger than fifty years ago. There was a
bookcase of white wood ruled with gold lines, like the spindly chairs
and tables, and here Bessie could study, if she pleased, the literary
tastes of ancient ladies, matrons and virgins, long since departed this
life in the odor of gentility and sanctity. The volumes were in bindings
rich and solid, and the purchase or presentation of each had probably
been an event. Bessie took down here and there one. Those ladies who
spent their graceful leisure at embroidery-frames were students of
rather stiff books. Locke _On the Conduct of the Human Understanding_
and Paley's _Evidences of the Christian Religion_ Bessie took down and
promptly restored; also the _Sermons_ of Dr. Barrow and the _Essays_ of
Dr. Goldsmith. The _Letters_ of Mrs. Katherine Talbot and Mrs. Elizabeth
Carter engaged her only a few minutes, and the novels of Miss Edgeworth
not much longer. The