cheon was over, Lady Latimer, quitting the dining-room first,
walked through the hall to the door of the great drawing-room. The
little page ran quickly and opened to her, then ran in and drew back the
silken curtains to admit the light. The immense room was close yet
chill, as rooms are that have been long disused for daily purposes.

"Ah, you do not live here as you used to do formerly?" she said to Mr.
Fairfax, who followed her.

"No, we are a diminished family. The octagon parlor is our common
sitting-room."

Bessie had promised Macky that some rainy day she would make a tour of
the house and view the pictures, but she had not done it yet, and this
room was strange to her. The elder visitors had been once quite familiar
with it. Lady Latimer pointed to a fine painting of the Virgin and
Child, and remarked, "There is the Sasso-Ferrato," then sat down with
her back to it and began to talk of political difficulties in Italy. Mr.
Cecil Burleigh was interested in Italy, so was Mr. Oliver Smith, and
they had a very animated conversation in which the others joined--all
but Bessie. Bessie listened and looked on, and felt not quite
happy--rather disenchanted, in fact. Lady Latimer was the same as
ever--she overflowed with practical goodness--but Bessie did not regard
her with the same simple, adoring confidence. Was it the influence of
the old love-story that she had heard? My lady seemed entirely free from
pathetic or tender memories, and domineered in the conversation here as
she did everywhere. Even Lady Angleby was half effaced, and the squire
had nothing to say.

"I like her best at Fairfield," Bessie thought, but Bessie liked
everything best in the Forest.

Just before taking her leave my lady said abruptly to the young lady of
the house, "An important sphere is open to you: I hope you will be able
to fill it with honor to yourself and benefit to others. You have an
admirable example of self-devotion, if you can imitate it, in Mrs.
Chiverton of Castlemount. She told me that you were school-fellows and
friends already. I was glad to hear it."

These remarks were so distinctly enunciated that every eye was at once
attracted to Bessie's face. She colored, and with an odd, fastidious
twist of her mouth--the feminine rendering of the squire's cynical
smile--she answered, "Mrs. Chiverton has what she married for: God grant
her satisfaction in it, and save me from her temptation!" In nothing did
Bessie Fairfax's early