The visit to the island was productive of excellent results in the
way of a better understanding, and my lady made no more opposition to
Elizabeth's leaving her and taking up her abode in Mr. Carnegie's house
until her marriage.
For a day or two the triangular nest under the thatch felt small and
confined to Bessie, but one morning the rustic sweetness of honeysuckle
blowing in at the open lattice awoke in her memory a thousand happy
childish recollections and brought back all the dear home-feelings. Then
Harry Musgrave was more like his original self here than elsewhere.
Insensibly he fell into his easy boyish pleasantry of manner, and
announced himself as more secure of his fate when he found Bessie
sitting in company with a work-basket in the pretty, low, old-fashioned
drawing-room, perfumed with roses overflowing the china bowl. Bessie had
a perfect notion of the fitness of things, and as simplicity of dress
seemed best suited to her beauty in that place, she attired herself in
her plainest and most becoming gown, and Harry looked her over
approvingly and called her his dear little Bessie again. The doctor, her
mother, the children, every early friend out of the house, was glad, and
congratulated her upon her return to the Forest and to them. And now and
then, in the dreamy length of the days when she sat thinking, all the
interval of time and all the change of scene, circumstance, and faces
since she first went away appeared to her like a dream of the night
when it is gone.
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