example for
imitation."

Miss Burleigh, lingering a few minutes in Miss Fairfax's room when they
went up stairs, delivered her mind on the matter. "My poor ambition
flies low," she said. "I could be content to give love for love, and do
my duty in the humblest station God might call me to, but not for any
sake could I go into the house of bondage where no love is. Poor Mrs.
Chiverton!"

Bessie made a very unsentimental reply: "Poor Mrs. Chiverton, indeed!
Oh, but she does not want our pity! That old man is a slave to her, just
as the girls were at school. She adores power, and if she is allowed to
help and patronize people, she will be perfectly happy in her way.
Everybody does not care, first and last, to love and be loved. I have
been so long away from everybody who loves me that I am learning to do
without it."

"Oh, my dear, don't fancy that," said Miss Burleigh, and she stroked
Bessie's face and kissed her. "Some of us here are longing to love you
quite as tenderly as any friends you have in the Forest." And then she
bade her good-night and left her to her ruminations.

Miss Burleigh's kiss brought a blush to Bessie's face that was slow to
fade even though she was alone. She sat thinking, her hands clasped, her
eyes dreamily fixed on the flame of the candle. Some incidents on board
the Foam recurred to her mind, and the blush burnt more hotly. Then,
with a sigh, she said to herself, "It is pleasant here, everybody is
good to me, but I wish I could wake up at Beechhurst to-morrow morning,
and have a ride with my father, and mend socks with my mother in the
afternoon. There one felt _safe_."

There was a knock at the door, and Mrs. Betts entered, complacent with
the flattering things that had been said of her young lady in the
steward's room, and willing to repeat them on the smallest
encouragement: "Miss Jocund is really cleverer than could have been
supposed, miss. Your white silk fits most beautiful," she began.

"I was not conscious of being newly dressed to-night, so her work must
be successful," replied Bessie, untying the black velvet round her fair
throat. Mrs. Betts took occasion to suggest that a few more ornaments
would not be amiss. "I don't care for ornaments--I am fond of my old
cross," Bessie said, laying it in the rosy palm of her hand. Then
looking up with a melancholy, reflective smile, she said, "All the
shining stones in the world would not tempt me to sacrifice my liberty."
Mrs. Chiverto