her?"

"The best of pleas. Don't fear too much. Give her leave to love you by
avowing your love--that is what a girl waits for: if you let her go back
to Woldshire without an understanding between yourselves, she will think
you care for your own pride more than for her."

"I wish she were little Bessie at Beechhurst again, and all her finery
blown to the winds. I have not seen her for five days."

"That must be your own fault. You don't want an ambassador? If you do,
there's the post."

Harry was silent again. He was chiefly raising objections for the
pleasure of hearing them contradicted; of course he was not aware of
half the objections that might have been cited against him as an
aspirant to the hand of Miss Fairfax. In the depth of his heart there
was a tenacious conviction that Bessie Fairfax loved him best in the
world--with a love that had grown with her growth and strengthened with
her strength, and would maintain itself independent of his failure or
success in life. But oh, that word _failure_! It touched him with a
dreadful chill. He turned pale at it, and resolutely averted his mind
from the idea.

He left young Christie with as little ceremony as he had rejoined him,
and walked home to Brook, entering the garden from the wood. The first
sight that met him was Bessie Fairfax standing alone under the beeches.
At the moment he thought it was an illusion, for she was all in
bluish-gray amongst the shadows; but at the sound of the gate she turned
quickly and came forward to meet him.

"I was just beginning to feel disappointed," said she impulsively. "Lady
Latimer brought me over to say good-bye, and we were told you had gone
to Littlemire. She is in the sitting-room with your mother. I came out
here."

Harry's face flushed so warmly that he had no need to express his joy in
words. What a lucky event it was that he had met Mr. Wiley, and had been
turned back from his visit to his old tutor! He was fatigued with
excitement and his hurried walk, and he invited Bessie to sit with him
under the beeches where they used to sit watching the little stream as
it ran by at their feet. Bessie was nothing loath--she was thinking that
this was the last time they should meet for who could tell how long--and
she complied with all her old child-like submission to him, and a
certain sweet appealing womanly dignity, which, without daunting Harry
at all, compelled him to remember that she was not any longer a child.

The