ortunity to do them; and that we call ambition.
Harry Musgrave is ambitious. He is going to be a lawyer. What can a
famous lawyer become?"

"Lord chancellor, the highest civil dignity under the Crown."

"Then I shall set my mind on seeing Harry lord chancellor," cried Bessie
with bold conclusion.

"And when he retires from office, though he may have held it for ever so
short a time, he will have a pension of five thousand a year."

"How pleasant! What a grateful country! Then he will be able to buy
Brook and spend his holidays there. Dear old Harry! We were like brother
and sister once, and I feel as if I had a right to be proud of him, as
you are of your brother Cecil. Women have no chance of being ambitious
on their own account, have they?"

"Oh yes. Women are as ambitious of rank, riches, and power as men are;
and some are ambitious of doing what they imagine to be great deeds. You
will probably meet one at Brentwood, a most beautiful lady she is--a
Mrs. Chiverton."

Bessie's countenance flashed: "She was a Miss Hiloe, was she not--Ada
Hiloe? I knew her. She was at Madame Fournier's--she and a younger
sister--during my first year there."

"Then you will be glad to meet again. She was married in Paris only the
other day, and has come into Woldshire a bride. They say she is showing
herself a prodigy of benevolence round her husband's magnificent seat
already: she married him that she might have the power to do good with
his immense wealth. There must always be some self-sacrifice in a lofty
ambition, but hers is a sacrifice that few women could endure to pay."

Bessie held her peace. She had been instructed how all but impossible it
is to live in the world and be absolutely truthful; and what perplexed
her in this new character of her old school-fellow she therefore
supposed to be the veil of glamour which the world requires to have
thrown over an ugly, naked truth.

About eleven o'clock the two young ladies walked out across the park
towards the lodge, to pay a visit to Mrs. Stokes. Then they walked on to
the village, and home again by the mill. The morning seemed long drawn
out. Then followed luncheon, and after it Mr. Cecil Burleigh drove in an
open carriage with Bessie and his sister to Hartwell. The afternoon was
very clear and pleasant, and the scenery sufficiently varied. On the
road Bessie learnt that Hartwell was the early home of Lady Latimer, and
still the residence of her bachelor brother and two