By whose advice it was
that she was sent to school a week in advance of the opening she never
knew. But there she was in the wilderness of a house, with only a
dejected English teacher suffering from chronic face-ache, and another
scholar, younger than herself, for company. The great madame was still
absent at Bayeux, spending the vacation with her uncle the canon.
It was a moonlight night, and the jalousies looking upon the garden were
not closed. Bessie was neither timid nor grievous, but she was
desperately wide-awake. The formality of receiving her and showing her
to bed had been very briefly despatched. It seemed as if she had been
left at the door like a parcel, conveyed up stairs, and put away.
Beechhurst was a thousand miles off, and yesterday a hundred years ago!
The doctor and Harry Musgrave could hardly have walked back to Thunby's
hotel before she and her new comrade were in their little beds. Now,
indeed, was the Rubicon passed, and Bessie Fairfax committed to all the
vicissitudes of exile. She realized the beginning thereof when she
stretched her tired limbs on her unyielding mattress of straw, and
recalled her dear little warm nest under the eaves at home.
Presently, from a remote couch spoke her one companion, "I am sitting up
on end. What are you doing?"
"Nothing. Lying down and staring at the moon," replied Bessie, and
turned her eyes in the direction of the voice.
The figure sitting up on end was distinctly visible.
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