y as _that_." And Bessie felt that my lady had got the last
word for the present.

She looked guilty yet indignant at this open reference to what was no
more than an unspoken vision. She had a thousand shy silent thoughts in
her heart, but it was not for any one to drag them into the light. Lady
Latimer understood that she had said too much, but she would not
retract, and in this way their contention began. They were henceforward
visibly in opposition. Mr. Harry Musgrave called the next morning at
Fairfield and asked for Miss Fairfax. He was not admitted; he was told
that she was not at home.

"But I was at home. Perhaps he is going back to London. I should have
liked to see him," said Bessie when she heard.

"He came at eleven o'clock: who comes at eleven o'clock? Of course
Roberts said 'Not at home,'" replied my lady.

Bessie knew that Roberts would not have said "Not at home" unless he
had received orders to that effect. And, in fact, his orders were to say
"Not at home" to Mr. Harry Musgrave at any and every hour. Lady Latimer
had pledged herself to secure the success of Mr. Cecil Burleigh. She
felt that Bessie was strong in her frank defiance, but if my lady could
do no more for the discouraged suitor, she could at least keep his
favored rival at a distance. And this she did without a twinge of
remorse. Bessie had a beautiful temper when she was pleased, but her
whole soul rebelled against persecution, and she considered it acute
persecution to be taken out for formal drives and calls in custody of my
lady and Mr. Cecil Burleigh, when her mother was probably mending the
boys' socks, and longing for an hour or two of her company at
Beechhurst, and Harry Musgrave was looking in every afternoon at the
doctor's to see if, by good luck, she had gone over. Bessie was made
aware of this last circumstance, and she reckoned it up with a daily
accumulating sense of injury against my lady and her client. Mr. Cecil
Burleigh found out before long that he was losing rather than gaining in
her esteem. Miss Fairfax became not only stiff and cold, but perverse,
and Lady Latimer began to feel that it was foolishly done to bring her
to Fairfield. She had been put in the way of the very danger that was to
be averted. Mr. Harry Musgrave showed to no disadvantage in any company;
Miss Fairfax had not the classic taste; Lady Angleby's tactics were a
signal failure; her nephew it was who suffered diminution in the ordeal
she had prescr