This reiterated indiscretion caused a breach
with his father, and the slender allowance that had been made him was
resumed. But his new wife was good to his little Bessie, and Abbotsmead
was a long way off.
There were no children of this second marriage, which was lucky; for
three years after, the rector himself died, leaving his widow as
desolate as a clergyman's widow, totally unprovided for, can be. She had
never seen any member of her husband's family, and she made no claim on
Mr. Fairfax, who, for his part, acknowledged none. Bessie's near
kinsfolk on her mother's side were all departed this life; there was
nobody who wanted the child, or who would have regarded her in any light
but an incumbrance. The rector's widow therefore kept her unquestioned;
and being a woman of much sense and little pride, she moved no farther
from the rectory than to a cottage-lodging in the town, where she found
some teaching amongst the children of the small gentry, who then, as
now, were its main population.
It was hard work for meagre reward, and perhaps she was not sorry to
exchange her mourning-weeds for bride-clothes again when Mr. Carnegie
asked her; for she was of a dependent, womanly character, and the doctor
was well-to-do and well respected, and ready with all his heart to give
little Bessie a home. The child was young enough when she lost her own
parents to lose all but a reflected memory of them, and cordially to
adopt for a real father and mother those who so cordially adopted her.
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