Mr. Cecil Burleigh had taken a chair opposite the door, and he watched
for its reopening with a visible and vivid interest. It opened, and
Bessie walked in with that stately erectness of gait which was
characteristic of the women of her race. "As upright as a Fairfax," was
said of them in more senses than one. She was blushing, and her large
dark blue eyes had the softness of recent tears. She curtseyed,
school-girl fashion, to her grandfather's envoy, and her graceful proud
humility set him instantly at a distance. His programme was to be
lordly, affable, tenderly patronizing, but his dark cheek flushed, and
self-possessed as he was, both by nature and habit, he was suddenly at a
loss how to address this stiff princess about whom he had expected to
find some rags of Cophetua still hanging. But the rags were all gone,
and the little gypsy of the Forest was become a lady.
Madame intervened with needful explanations. Bessie comprehended the
gist of the embassage very readily. She must take heart for an immediate
encounter with her grandfather and all her other difficulties, or she
must resign herself to a fourth year of exile and of school. Her mind
was at once made up. Since the morning--how long ago it seemed!--an
ardent wish to return to England had begun to glow in her imagination.
She wanted her real life to begin. These dull, monotonous school-days
were only a prelude which had gone on long enough.
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