en possession of what he left. The poor
lady in seclusion at Caen died also about this time, and a large
addition was made to Mr. Fairfax's income--so large that his loss by the
Durham lawsuit was more than balanced. The lawyer looked far from
pleasant while transacting his client's business. It was true that Mr.
Frederick Fairfax had left no will, but he had expressed certain
distinct intentions, and these intentions, to the indignant astonishment
of many persons, his father would not carry out. Mr. Forbes talked to
him of the sacredness of his son's wishes, but the squire had a purpose
for the money, and was obstinate in his refusal to relinquish it. Some
people decided that thus he meant to enrich his granddaughter without
impoverishing Abbotsmead for his successor, but Mr. John Short's manner
to the young lady was tinctured with a respectful compassion that did
not augur well for her prospects.

Bessie paid very little heed to the speculations of which she could not
fail to hear something. So long as her grandfather was tolerably kind
to her she asked no more from the present, and she left the future to
take care of itself. But it cannot be averred that he was invariably
kind. There seemed to lurk in his mind a sense of injury, which he
visited upon her in sarcastic gibes and allusions to the Forest,
taunting her with impatience to have done with him and begone to her
dearer friends. Bessie resented this for a little while, but by and by
she ceased to be affected, and treated it as the pettishness of a sick
old man, never used to be considerate for others. He kept her very much
confined and gave her scant thanks for her care of him. If Mr. Cecil
Burleigh admired patience and forbearance in a woman, he had the
opportunity of studying a fair example of both in her. He pitied her
secretly, but she put on no martyr-airs. "It is nothing. Oh no,
grandpapa is not difficult--it is only his way. Most people are testy
when they are ill," she would plead, and she believed what she said. The
early sense of repulsion and disappointment once overcome, she was too
sensible to bewail the want of unselfish affection where it had never
existed before.

The squire had certain habits of long standing--habits of coldness,
distance, reserve, and he never changed materially. He survived through
the ensuing autumn and winter, and finally sank during the
north-easterly weather of the following spring, just two years after the
death of his