young
lady as a man could wish to look at, and his wife said her good heart
could be seen in her face.

Bessie felt, nevertheless, rather more formally at home than in her
childhood, except with her old comrade Harry. Between them there was not
a moment's shyness. They were as friendly, as intimate as formerly,
though with a perceptible difference of manner. Bessie had the simple
graces of happy maidenhood, and Harry had the courteous reserve of good
society to which his university honors and pleasant humor had introduced
him. He was a very acceptable companion wherever he went, because his
enjoyment of life was so thorough as to be almost infectious. He must be
a dull dog, indeed, who did not cheer up in the sunshine of Musgrave's
presence: that was his popular character, and it agreed with Bessie's
reminiscences of him; but Harry, like other young men of great hopes and
small fortunes, had his hours of shadow that Christie knew of and others
guessed at. At tea the talk fell on London amusements and bachelor-life
in chambers.

"As for Christie, prudent old fogy that he is, what can he know of our
miseries?" said Harry with assumed ruefulness "He has a mansion in
Cheyne Walk and a balcony looking over the river, and a vigilant
housekeeper who allows no latch-key and turns off the gas at eleven. She
gives him perfect little dinners, and makes him too comfortable by half:
we poor apprentices to law lodge and fare very rudely."

"He has the air of being well done to, which is more than could be said
for you when first you arrived at home, Harry," remarked his mother with
what struck Bessie as a long and wistful gaze.

"Too much smell of the midnight oil is poison to country lungs--mind
what I tell you," said the doctor, emphasizing his words with a grave
nod at the young man.

"He ought to be content with less of his theatres and his operas and
supper-parties if he will read and write so furiously. A young fellow
can't combine the lives of a man of study and a man of leisure without
stealing too many hours from his natural rest. But I talk in vain--talk
you, Mr. Carnegie," said Christie with earnestness.

"A man must work, and work hard, now-a-days, if he means to do or be
anything," said Harry defiantly.

"It is the pace that kills," said the doctor. "The mischief is, that you
ardent young fellows never know when to stop. And in public life, my
lad, there is many a one comes to acknowledge that he has made more
h