fate slip out of her hands. She could not now declare her refusal to go
to school at all; she could only choose what kind of school she would go
to. "If it must be one or another, let it be French," she said, and
rushed from the room in a tempestuous mood.

Mrs. Carnegie excused her as very affectionate, and as tired and
overdone. She looked tired and overdone herself, and out of spirits as
well. Mr. John Short said a few sympathetic words, and volunteered a few
reasonable pledges for the future, and then took his leave--the kindest
thing he could do, since thus he set the mother at liberty to go and
comfort her child. Her idea of comforting and Bessie's idea of being
comforted consisted, for the nonce, in having a good cry together.

* * * * *

When his agent came to explain to Mr. Fairfax how far he had carried his
negotiations for his granddaughter's removal from Beechhurst, the squire
demurred. The thorn which Mr. Wiley had planted in his conscience was
rankling sorely; his pride was wounded too--perhaps that was more hurt
even than his conscience--but he felt that he had much to make up to the
child, not for his long neglect only, but for the indignities that she
had been threatened with. She might have been apprenticed to a trade; he
might have had to negotiate with some shopkeeper to cancel her
indentures. He did not open his mind to Mr. John Short on this matter;
he kept it to himself, and made much more of it in his imagination than
it deserved. Bessie had already forgotten it, except as a part of the
odd medley that her life seemed coming to, and in the recollection it
never vexed her; but it was like a grain of sand in her grandfather's
eye whenever he reviewed the incidents of this time. He gathered from
the lawyer's account of the interview how little acceptable to Bessie
was the notion of being sent to school, and asked why she should not go
to Abbotsmead at once?

"There is no reason why she should not go to Abbotsmead if you will have
a lady in the house--a governess," said Mr. John Short.

"I will have no governess in the house; I suppose she is too young to be
alone?"

"Well, yes. Mrs. Carnegie would not easily let her go unless in the
assurance that she will be taken care of. She has been a good deal
petted and spoiled. She is a fine character, but she would give you
nothing but trouble if you took her straight home."

Lady Latimer, with whom Mr. Fairfax held fur