miss it," said the old woman, and
gazed up at her inquisitively.

So Bessie kept straight on until she came to the ivy-covered walls of
the lodge; the porch opened upon the road, and Colonel Stokes was
standing outside in conversation with another gentleman, who was the
vicar of Kirkham, Mr. Forbes. Bessie went on when she had passed them,
shyly disconcerted, for Colonel Stokes had come forward with an air of
surprise and had asked her if she was lost. Perhaps it was unusual for
young ladies to walk alone here? She did not know.

The gentlemen watched her out of sight. "Miss Fairfax, of course," said
the vicar. "She walks admirably--I like to see that."

"A handsome girl," said Colonel Stokes. And then they reverted to their
interrupted discussion, the approaching election at Norminster. The
clergyman was very keen about it, the old Indian officer was almost
indifferent.

Meanwhile Bessie reached the church--a very ancient church, spacious and
simple, with a square tower and a porch that was called Norman. The
graveyard surrounded it. A flagged pathway led from the gate between the
grassy mounds to the door, which stood open that the Saturday sun might
drive out the damp vapors of the week. She went in and saw whitewashed
walls; thick round pillars between the nave and aisles; deep-sunken
windows dim with fragmentary pieces of colored glass, and all more or
less out of the perpendicular; a worm-eaten oak-screen separating the
chancel and a solemn enclosure, erst a chapel, now the Fairfax pew; a
loft where the choir sat in front for divine service, with fiddle and
bassoon, and the school-children sat behind, all under the eye of the
parson and his clerk, who was also the school-master.

In the chancel were several monuments to the memory of defunct pastors.
The oldest was very old, and the inscription in Latin on brass; the
newest was to Bessie's grandfather--the "Reverend Thomas Bulmer, for
forty-six years vicar of this parish." From the dates he had married
late, for he had died in a good old age in the same year as his daughter
Elizabeth, and only two months before her. In smaller letters below the
inscription-in-chief it was recorded that his wife Letitia was buried at
Torquay in Cornwall, and that this monument was erected to their pious
memory by their only child--"Elizabeth, the wife of the Reverend Geoffry
Fairfax, rector of Beechhurst in the county of Hants."

All gone--not one left! Bessie pondered over