But she said nothing; some feeling
that she did not reason about told her that there must be no complaining
here, let the days be what they might. She wrote a long letter to Madame
Fournier, and then went out of doors, having declined Mrs. Betts's
proposed attendance.
"Where is the village?" she asked a boy who was sweeping up fallen
leaves from the still dewy lawn. He pointed her the way to go. "And the
church and parsonage?" she added.
"They be all together, miss, a piece beyond the lodge."
With an object in view Bessie could feel interested. She was going to
see her mother's home, the house where she was herself born; and on the
road she began to question whether she had any kinsfolk on her mother's
side. Mrs. Carnegie had once told her that she believed not--unless
there were descendants of her grandfather Bulmer's only brother in
America, whither he had emigrated as a young man; but she had never
heard of any. A cousin of some sort would have been most acceptable to
Bessie in her dignified isolation. She did not naturally love solitude.
The way across the park by which she had been directed brought her out
upon the high-road--a very pleasant road at that spot, with a fir wood
climbing a shallow hill opposite, bounded by a low stone fence, all
crusted with moss and lichen, age and weather.
For nearly half a mile along the roadside lay an irregular open space of
broken ground with fine scattered trees upon it, and close turf where
primroses were profuse in spring.
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