r when she is pleased. She has always been dear Cecil's fast
friend, and his triumph will be hers. She will want to celebrate it
joyously, and nothing is really so joyous as a good dance. We will have
a good dance."

CHAPTER XXIII.

_BESSIE SHOWS CHARACTER._

At breakfast, Mr. Fairfax handed a letter to Bessie. "From home, from my
mother," said she in a glad undertone, and instantly, without apology,
opened and read it. Mr. Cecil Burleigh took a furtive observation of her
while she was thus occupied. What a good countenance she had! how the
slight emotion of her lips and the lustrous shining under her dark
eyelashes enhanced her beauty! It was a letter to make her happy, to
give her a light heart to go to Brentwood with. Mrs. Carnegie was always
sympathetic, cheerful, and loving in her letters. She encouraged her
dear Bessie to reconcile herself to absence, and attach herself to her
new home by cultivating all its sources of interest, and especially the
affection of her grandfather. She gave her much tender, reasonable
advice for her guidance, and she gave her good news: they were all well
at home and at Brook, and Harry Musgrave had come out in honors at
Oxford. The sunshine of pure content irradiated Bessie's face. She
looked up; she wanted to communicate her joy. Her grandfather looked up
at the same moment, and their eyes met.

"Would you like to read it? It is from my mother," she said, holding out
the letter with an impulse to be good to him.

"I can trust you with your correspondence, Elizabeth," was his reply.

She drew back her hand quickly, and laid down the letter by her plate.
She sipped her tea, her throat aching, her eyes swimming. The squire
began to talk rather fast and loud, and in a few minutes, the meal being
over, he pushed away his chair and left the room.

"The train we go into Norminster by reaches Mitford Junction at ten
thirty-five," observed Mr. Cecil Burleigh.

Bessie rose and vanished with a mutinous air, which made him laugh and
whisper to his sister, as she disappeared, that the young lady had a
rare spirit. Mr. Fairfax was in the hall. She went swiftly up to him,
and laying a hand on his arm, said, in a quivering, resolute voice,
"Read my letter, grandpapa. If you will not recognize those I have the
best right to love, we shall be strangers always, you and I."

"Come up stairs: I will read your letter," said the old man shortly, and
he mounted to her parlor, she still kee