"Curious now:
Archdeacon Topham was the son of a country carpenter: headstrong
fellow--took a mountain-walk without a guide, and fell down a
_crevasse_, or something."
Mr. Cecil Burleigh arrived the next day to luncheon. In the afternoon
the whole party walked in the Forest. Lady Latimer kept Dora at her
elbow, and required Mr. Logger's opinion and advice on a new emigration
scheme that she was endeavoring to develop. Bessie Fairfax was thus left
to Mr. Cecil Burleigh, and they were not at a loss for conversation.
Bessie was feeling quite gay and happy, and talked and listened as
cheerfully as possible. The gentleman was rather jaded with the work of
the session, and showed it in his handsome visage. He assumed that Miss
Fairfax was so far in his confidence as to be interested in the high
themes that interested himself, and of these he discoursed until his
companion inadvertently betrayed that she was capable of abstracting her
mind and thinking of something else while seeming to give him all her
polite attention. He was then silent--not unthankfully.
Their walk took them first round by the wheelwright's and afterward by
the village. Lady Latimer loved to entertain and occupy her guests, even
those who would have preferred wider margins of leisure. On the green in
front of the wheelwright's they found little Christie seated under a
white umbrella, making a sketch of his father's house and the shed.
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