ady; and what cubs we were, Bessie, to throw her kindness
in her face before! How angry you were!"

"You were afraid that her patronage might be a trespass on your
independence. It was a mistake in the right direction, if it was a
mistake at all. Poor Mr. Logger is called a toady because he loves to
visit at the comfortable houses of rich great widow ladies, but I am
sure they love to have him. Lady Latimer does not approve you any the
less for not being eager to accept her invitations. You know I was fond
of her--I looked up to her more than anybody. I believe I do still."

There was a brief pause, and then Harry said, "I have heard nothing of
Abbotsmead yet, Bessie?"

"There is not much to hear. I live there, but no longer in the character
of heiress; that prospect is changed by the opportune discovery that my
uncle Laurence had the wisdom, some five years ago, to take a wife to
please himself, instead of a second fine lady to please my grandfather.
He made a secret of it, for which there was no necessity and not much
excuse, but he did it for their happiness. They have three capital
little boys, who, of course, have taken my shoes. I am not sorry. I
don't care for Woldshire or Abbotsmead. The Forest has my heart."

"And mine. A man may set his hopes high, so I go on aspiring to the
possession of this earthly paradise of Brook."

Bessie was smitten with a sudden recollection of what more Harry had
aspired to that time she was admitted into his confidence respecting the
old manor-house. She colored consciously, for she knew that he also
recollected, then said with a smile, "Ah, Harry, but between such
aspirations and their achievement there stretches so often a weary long
day. You will tire with looking forward if you look so far. Are you not
tiring now?"

"No, no. You must not take any notice of my mother's solemn prognostics.
She does not admire what she calls the smoky color I bring home from
London. Some remote ancestor of my father died there of decline, and she
has taken up a notion that I ought to throw the study of the law to the
winds, come home, and turn farmer. Of what avail, I ask her, would my
scholarship be then?"

"You would enjoy it, Harry. In combination with a country life it would
make you the pleasantest life a man can live."

Harry shook his head: "What do you know about it, Bessie? It is
dreadfully hard on an ambitious fellow to be forced to turn his back on
all his fine visions of useful