9
XXVII. SOME DOUBTS AND FEARS 216
XXVIII. IN MINSTER COURT 223
XXIX. LADY LATIMER IN WOLDSHIRE 228
XXX. MY LADY REVISITS OLD SCENES 235
XXXI. A SUCCESS AND A REPULSE 241
XXXII. A HARD STRUGGLE 254
XXXIII. A VISIT TO CASTLEMOUNT 256
XXXIV. BESSIE'S PEACEMAKING 266
XXXV. ABBOTSMEAD IN SHADOW 273
XXXVI. DIPLOMATIC 282
XXXVII. SUNDAY MORNING AT BEECHHURST 285
XXXVIII. SUNDAY EVENING AT BROOK 294
XXXIX. AT FAIRFIELD 305
XL. ANOTHER RIDE WITH THE DOCTOR 311
XLI. FRIENDS AND ACQUAINTANCES 318
XLII. HOW FRIENDS MAY FALL OUT 323
XLIII. BETWEEN THEMSELVES 328
XLIV. A LONG DULL DAY 336
XLV. THE SQUIRE'S WILL 343
XLVI. TENDER AND TRUE 349
XLVII. GOODNESS PREVAILS 360
XLVIII. CERTAIN OPINIONS 365
XLIX. BESSIE'S LAST RIDE WITH THE DOCTOR 372
L. FOR BETTER, FOR WORSE 381

THE VICISSITUDES OF BESSIE FAIRFAX.

CHAPTER I.

_HER BIRTH AND PARENTAGE._

The years have come and gone at Beechhurst as elsewhere, but the results
of time and change seem to have almost passed it by. Every way out of
the scattered forest-town is still through beautiful forest-roads--roads
that cleave grand avenues, traverse black barren heaths, ford shallow
rivers, and climb over ferny knolls whence the sea is visible. The
church is unrestored, the parsonage is unimproved, the long low house
opposite is still the residence of Mr. Carnegie, the local doctor, and
looks this splendid summer morning precisely as it looked in the
splendid summer mornings long ago, when Bessie Fairfax was a little
girl, and lived there, and was very happy.

Bessie was not akin to the doctor. Her birth and parentage were on this
wise. Her father was Geoffry, the third and youngest son of Mr. Fairfax
of Abbotsmead in Woldshire. Her mother was Elizabeth, only child of the
Reverend Thomas Bulmer, vicar of Kirkham. Their marriage was a
love-match, concluded when they had something less than the experience
of forty years between them. The gentleman had his university deb