cleared. At this moment
she was dazzled by a series of surprises. First, by the sight of that
cherub, and then by the order that reigned through this quaint and
narrow house where her learned kinsman lived. They had come up a winding
stair into a large, light hall, lined with books and peopled by marble
sages on pedestals, from which opened two doors--the one into a small
red parlor where the philosopher ate, the other into a long room looking
to the garden and the minster, furnished with the choicest collections
of his travelled youth. The "omnibus" of Canon Fournier used to be all
dusty disorder. Bessie's silence and her vagrant eyes misled her uncle
into the supposition that his old stones, old canvases, and ponderous
quartoes interested her curiosity, and noticing that they settled at
length, with an intelligent scrutiny, on some object beyond him, he
asked what it was, and moved to see.

Nothing rich, nothing rare or ancient--only the tail and woolly
hind-quarters of a toy lamb extruded from the imperfectly closed door of
a cupboard below a bookcase. Instantly he jumped up and went to shut the
cupboard; but first he must open it to thrust in the lamb, and out it
tumbled bodily, and after it a wagon with red wheels and black-spotted
horses harnessed thereto. As he awkwardly restored them, Mrs. Stokes
never moved a muscle, but Bessie smiled irrepressibly and in her uncle's
face as he returned to his seat with a fine confusion blushing thereon.
At that moment Burrage came in with the tea. No doubt Mrs. Stokes was
equally astonished to see a nursery-cupboard in a philosopher's study,
but she could turn her discourse to circumstances with more skill than
her unworldly companion, and she resumed the thread of their interrupted
chat with perfect composure. Mr. Laurence Fairfax could not, however,
take her cue, and he rose with readiness at the first movement of the
ladies to go. He began to say to Bessie that she must make his house
her home when she wanted to come to Norminster, and that he should
always be glad of her company. Bessie thanked him, and as she looked up
in his benevolent face there was a pure friendliness in her eyes that he
responded to by a warm pressure of her hand. And as he closed the door
upon them he dismissed his sympathetic niece with a most kind and
kinsman-like nod.

Mrs. Stokes began to laugh when they were clear of the house: "A pretty
discovery! Mr. Laurence Fairfax has a little playfellow: