Mr. and Mrs. Musgrave were out there
on the green slope under the beeches, awaiting their son and his friend,
and lively were their exclamations of joy when they saw who their other
visitors were.
"Did I not tell you little Bessie was at church, Harry?" cried his
father, turning to him with an air of triumph.
"And he would not believe it. I thought myself it must be a mistake,"
said Mrs. Musgrave.
Bessie was touched to the heart by their cordial welcome. She made a
most favorable impression. Mr. Musgrave thought her as handsome a young
lady as a man could wish to look at, and his wife said her good heart
could be seen in her face.
Bessie felt, nevertheless, rather more formally at home than in her
childhood, except with her old comrade Harry. Between them there was not
a moment's shyness. They were as friendly, as intimate as formerly,
though with a perceptible difference of manner. Bessie had the simple
graces of happy maidenhood, and Harry had the courteous reserve of good
society to which his university honors and pleasant humor had introduced
him. He was a very acceptable companion wherever he went, because his
enjoyment of life was so thorough as to be almost infectious. He must be
a dull dog, indeed, who did not cheer up in the sunshine of Musgrave's
presence: that was his popular character, and it agreed with Bessie's
reminiscences of him; but Harry, like other young men of great hopes and
small fortunes, had his hours of shadow that Christie knew of and others
guessed at.
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