to Norminster, dropping the squire and
Elizabeth at Mitford Junction. Thence they had a drive of four miles
through a country of long-backed, rounded hills, ripening cornfields,
and meadows green with the rich aftermath, and full of cattle. The sky
above was high and clear, the air had a crispness that was exhilarating.
The sun set in scarlet splendor, and the reflection of its glory was
shed over the low levels of lawn, garden, and copse, which, lying on
either side of a shallow, devious river, kept still the name of
Abbotsmead that had belonged to them before the great monastery at
Kirkham was dissolved.

Mr. Fairfax was in good-humor now, and recovered from his momentary loss
of self-possession at the sight of his granddaughter so thoroughly grown
up. Also, election business at Norminster was going as he would have it,
and bowling smoothly along in the quiet, early evening he had time to
think of Elizabeth, sitting bolt upright in the carriage beside him. She
had a pretty, pensive air, for which he saw no cause--only the
excitement of novelty staved off depression--and in his sarcastic vein,
with doubtful compliment, he said, "I did not expect to see you grown so
tall, Elizabeth. You look as healthy as a milkmaid."

She was very quick and sensitive of feeling. She understood him
perfectly, and replied that she _was_ as healthy as a milkmaid. Then she
reverted to her wistful contemplation of the landscape, and tried to
think of that and not of herself, which was too pathetic.

This country was not so lovely as the Forest. It had only the beauty of
high culture. Human habitations were too wide-scattered, and the
trees--there were no very great trees, nor any blue glimpses of the sea.
Nevertheless, when the carriage turned into the domain at a pretty
rustic lodge, the overarching gloom of an avenue of limes won Bessie's
admiration, and a few fir trees standing in single grace near the ruins
of the abbey, which they had to pass on their way to the house, she
found almost worthy to be compared with the centenarians of the Forest.
The western sun was still upon the house itself. The dusk-tiled mansard
roof, pierced by two rows of twinkling dormers, and crowned by solid
chimney-stacks, bulked vast and shapely against the primrose sky, and
the stone-shafted lower windows caught many a fiery reflection in their
blackness. Through a porch broad and deep, and furnished with oaken
seats, Bessie preceded her grandfather into a