read at his house, and he had refused to receive a dear
comrade of hers. It was his rule to receive none but the sons of
gentlemen. Young Musgrave was the son of a farmer on the Forest, who
called cousins with the young Carnegies. As the connection was wide,
perhaps the vigorous dislike of more important persons than Bessie
Fairfax is sufficiently accounted for. All the world is agreed that a
slight wound to men's self-love rankles much longer than a mortal
injury.

It is not, however, to be supposed that the Beechhurst people spited
themselves so far as to keep away from the rector's school-treat because
they did not love the rector. (By the by, it was not his treat, but only
buns and tea by subscription distributed in his grounds, with the
privilege of admittance to the subscribers.) The orthodox gentility of
the neighborhood assembled in force for the occasion when the sun shone
upon it as it shone to-day, and the entertainment was an event for
children of all classes. If the richer sort did not care for buns, they
did for games; and the Carnegie boys were so eager to lose none of the
sport that they coaxed Bessie to take time by the forelock, and
presented themselves almost first on the scene. Mrs. Wiley, ready and
waiting out of doors to welcome her more distinguished guests, met a
trio of the little folks, in Bessie's charge, trotting round the end of
the house to reach the lawn.

"Always in good time, Bessie Carnegie," said she. "But is not your
mother coming?"

"No, thank you, Mrs. Wiley," said Bessie with prim decorum.

"By the by, that is not your name. What is your name, Bessie?"

"Elizabeth Fairfax."

"Ah! yes; now I remember--Elizabeth Fairfax. And is your uncle pretty
well? I suppose we shall see him later in the day? He ought to look in
upon us before we break up. There! run away to the children in the
orchard, and leave the lawn clear."

Bessie accepted her dismissal gladly, thankful to escape the
catechetical ordeal that would have ensued had there been leisure for
it. She was almost as shy of the rector's wife as of the rector. Mrs.
Wiley had a brusque, absent manner, and it was a trick of hers to expose
her young acquaintance to a fire of questions, of which she as regularly
forgot the answers. She had often affronted Bessie Fairfax by asking her
real name, and in the next breath calling her affably Bessie Carnegie,
the doctor's step-daughter, niece or other little kinswoman whom he kept
as a