It is an old
promise. I always did love Harry Musgrave, and never anybody else."
Lady Latimer fumed, walked about and sat down again: "How are you to
live?"
"I don't know," said Bessie cheerfully. "Like other young people--partly
on our prospects. But we do not talk of marrying yet."
"It is a relief to hear that you do not talk of marrying yet, though how
you can dream of marrying young Mr. Musgrave at all, when you have Mr.
Cecil Burleigh at your feet, is to me a strange, incomprehensible
infatuation."
"Mr. Cecil Burleigh is not at my feet any longer. He has got up and gone
back to Miss Julia Gardiner's feet, which he ought never to have left.
Grandpapa's will has the effect of making two charming people happy, and
I am glad of it."
"Is it possible?" said Lady Latimer in a low, chagrined voice. "Then you
have lost him. I presume that you felt the strain of such high
companionship too severe for you? Early habits cling very close."
"He had no fascination for me; it was an effort sometimes."
"You must have been carrying on a correspondence with Mr. Harry Musgrave
all this while."
"We have corresponded during the last year," said Bessie calmly.
"I blame myself that I ever gave the opportunity for a renewal of your
old friendliness. That is the secret of your wilfulness."
"I loved Harry best--that is the secret of it," said Bessie; and she
turned away to close the discussion.
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