enjoy it, and also to take note of the many gay
and fashionable folk who enrich and embellish Ryde in the season; for
Mr. Cecil Burleigh was entirely engrossed with another person. The
party they had joined consisted of a very thin old gentleman, spruce,
well brushed, and well cared for; of a languid, pale lady, some thirty
years younger, who was his wife; and of two girls, their daughters. It
was one of these daughters who absorbed all Mr. Cecil Burleigh's
attention, and Bessie recognized her at once as that most beautiful
young lady to whom he had been devoted at the Fairfield wedding. His
meeting with her had quite transfigured him. He looked infinitely glad,
an expression that was reflected on her countenance in a lovely light of
joy. It was not necessary to be a witch to discern that there was an
understanding between these two--that they loved one another. Bessie saw
it and felt sympathetic, and was provoked at the recollection of her
foolish conceit in being perplexed by the gentleman's elaborate
courtesies to herself.

The other sister talked to her. Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner sat in silent
pensiveness, according to their wont, contemplating the boats on the
water. Mr. Cecil Burleigh and Julia (he called her Julia) conversed
together in low but earnest tones. It seemed that they had much to
communicate. Presently they crossed the pier, and stood for ever so long
leaning over the railing. Bessie was not inquisitive, but she could take
a lively, unselfish interest in many matters that did not concern her.
When they turned round again she was somehow not surprised to see that
Mr. Cecil Burleigh had a constrained air, and that the shell-pink face
of the young lady was pale and distorted with emotion. Their joy and
gladness had been but evanescent. She came hastily to her mother and
said they would now go home to luncheon. On the way she and Mr. Cecil
Burleigh followed behind the rest, but they did not speak much, or spoke
only of common things.

The Gardiners had a small house in a street turning up from the Strand,
a confined little house of the ordinary lodging-house sort, with a
handsbreadth of gravel and shrubs in front, and from the sitting-room
window up stairs a side-glance at the sea. From a few words that Mr.
Gardiner dropped, Bessie learned that it was theirs for twelve months,
until the following June; that it was very dear, but the cheapest place
they could get in Ryde fit to put their heads into; also that