Miss Burleigh saw the blush, seeming to
see nothing, and said softly, "I envy the woman who has to pass her life
with Cecil. I can imagine nothing more contenting than his society to
one he loves."
Bessie's blush was perpetuated. She would have liked to mention Miss
Julia Gardiner, but she felt a restraining delicacy in speaking of what
had come to her knowledge in such a casual way, and more than ever
ashamed of her own ridiculous mistake. Suddenly she broke out with an
odd query, at the same moment clapping her hands to her traitorous
cheeks: "Do you ever blush at your own foolish fancies? Oh, how tiresome
it is to have a trick of blushing! I wish I could get over it."
"It is a trick we get over quite early enough. The fancies girls blush
at are so innocent. I have had none of that pretty sort for a long
while."
Miss Burleigh looked sympathetic and amused. Bessie was silent for a few
minutes and full of thought. Presently, in a musing, meditative voice,
she said, "Ambition! I suppose all men who have force enough to do great
things long for an opportunity to do them; and that we call ambition.
Harry Musgrave is ambitious. He is going to be a lawyer. What can a
famous lawyer become?"
"Lord chancellor, the highest civil dignity under the Crown."
"Then I shall set my mind on seeing Harry lord chancellor," cried Bessie
with bold conclusion.
"And when he retires from office, though he may have held it for ever so
short a time, he will have a pension of five thousand a year.
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