Wherever Bessie goes she
will hold her own. She has plenty of character, and, take my word for
it, character tells more in the long-run than talking French. There is
the gig at the gate, and I must be off, though Bessie was starting for
Woldshire by the next post. The letter is not one to be answered on the
spur of the moment; acknowledge it, and say that it shall be answered
shortly."
With a comfortable kiss the doctor bade his wife good-bye for the day,
admonishing her not to fall a-crying with Bessie over what could not be
remedied. And so he left her with the tears in her eyes already. She sat
a few minutes feeling rather than reflecting, then with the lawyer's
letter in her hands went up stairs, calling softly as she went, "Bessie
dear, where are you?"
"Here, mother, in my own room;" and Bessie appeared in the doorway
handling a scarlet feather-brush with which she was accustomed to dust
her small property in books and ornaments each morning after the
housemaid had performed her heavier task.
Mrs. Carnegie entered with her, and shut the door; for the two-leaved
lattice was wide open, and the muslin curtains were blowing half across
the tiny triangular nook under the thatch, which had been Bessie
Fairfax's "own room" ever since she came to live in the doctor's house.
Bessie was very fond of it, very proud of keeping it neat. There were
assembled all the personal memorials of no moneysworth that had been
rescued from the rectory-sale after her father's death; two miniatures,
not valuable as works of art, but precious as likenesses of her parents;
a faint sketch in water-colors of Kirkham Church and Parsonage House,
and another sketch of Abbotsmead; an Indian work-box, a China bowl, two
jars and a dish, very antiquated, and diffusing a soft perfume of
roses; and about a hundred and fifty volumes of books, selected by his
widow from the rectory library, for their binding rather than their
contents, and perhaps not very suitable for a girl's collection.
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