Elizabeth was a
sweet girl, though she had the self-will of a child; in many points she
was more of a child than my lady had supposed--in her estimate of
individuals, and of their weight and position in the world, for
instance--but this was a fault that knowledge of the world would cure.
Mr. Fairfax was pleased to welcome his granddaughter home again, and
especially pleased to see no sadness in her return. The Forest was ever
so much nearer now--not out of her world at all. Bessie had travelled
that road once, and would travel it again. Every experience shortens
such roads, lessens such difficulties between true friends. Bessie's
acquaintances came to call upon her, and she talked of the pleasure it
had been to her to revisit the scenes of her childhood, of the few
changes that had happened there since she came away, and of the
hospitality of Lady Latimer.
The lime trees were turning yellow and thin of leaf; there was a fire
all day in the octagon parlor. It was autumn in Woldshire, soon to be
winter. It seemed to Bessie on her return like resuming the dull routine
of a life that had gone on for a long while. Mrs. Stokes, as her nearest
and most neighborly neighbor, often ran across the park of an afternoon,
but Bessie's best delight was at post-time in the morning. Mr. Fairfax
never came down stairs to breakfast, and she had Harry Musgrave's
letters all to herself, undiscovered and undisturbed.
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