ping her hold on his arm. He
stood at her table and read it, and laid it down without a word, but,
glancing aside at her pleasing face, he was moved to kiss her, and then
promptly effected his escape from her tyranny. He was not displeased,
and Bessie was triumphant.

"Now we can begin to be friends," she cried softly, clapping her hands.
"I refuse to be frightened. I shall always tell him my news, and make
him listen. If he is sarcastic, I won't care. He will respect me if I
assert my right to be respected, and maintain that my father and mother
at Beechhurst have the first and best claim on my love. He shall not
recognize them as belonging only to my past life; he shall acknowledge
them as belonging to me always. And Harry too!"

These strong resolutions arising out of that letter from the Forest
exhilarated Bessie exceedingly. There was perhaps more guile in her than
was manifest on slight acquaintance, but it was the guile of a wise,
warm heart. All trace of emotion had passed away when she came down
stairs, and when her grandfather, assisting her into the carriage,
squeezed her fingers confidentially, her new, all-pervading sense of
happiness was confirmed and established. And the courage that happiness
inspires was hers too.

At Mitford Junction, Colonel and Mrs. Stokes and Mr. Oliver Smith joined
their party, and they travelled to Norminster together. The old city was
going quietly about its business much as usual when they drove through
the streets to the "George," where Mr. Cecil Burleigh was to meet his
committee and address the electors out of the big middle bow-window.
Miss Jocund's shop was nearly opposite to the inn, and thither the
ladies at once adjourned, that Bessie might assume her blue bonnet. The
others were already handsomely provided. Miss Jocund was quite at
liberty to attend to them at this early hour of the day--her "gentleman"
had not come in yet--and she conducted them to her show-room over the
shop with the complacent alacrity of a milliner confident that she is
about to give supreme satisfaction. And indeed Mrs. Stokes cried out
with rapture, the instant the bonnet filled her eye, that it was "A
sweet little bonnet--blue crape and white marabouts!"

Bessie smiled most becomingly as it was tried on, and blushed at herself
in the glass. "But a shower of rain will spoil it," she objected,
nodding the downy white feathers that topped the brim. She was
proceeding philosophically to tie the g