Abbotsmead under its new
squire, all his learning and philosophy notwithstanding, promised to
become quite a house of the world again, for his beautiful young wife
was proving of a most popular character, and attracted friends about her
with no effort. Instead of old Lady Angleby, the Hartwell people and the
Chivertons, came the Tindals, Edens, Raymonds, Lefevres, and Wynards;
and Miss Fairfax felt herself an object of curiosity amongst them as the
young lady who had been all but disinherited for her obstinate refusal
to marry the man of her grandfather's choice. She was generally liked,
but she was not just then in the humor to cultivate anybody's intimacy.
Mrs. Stokes was still her chief resource when she was solitary.

She had a private grief and anxiety of her own, of which she could speak
to none. One day her expected letter from Harry Musgrave did not come;
it was the first time he had failed her since their compact was made.
She wrote herself as usual, and asked why she was neglected. In reply
she received a letter, not from Harry himself, but from his friend
Christie, who was nursing him through an attack of inflammation
occasioned by a chill from remaining in his wet clothes after an upset
on the river. She gathered from it that Harry had been ill and suffering
for nearly a fortnight, but that he was better, though very weak, and
that if Christie had been permitted to do as he wished, Mrs. Musgrave
would have been sent for, but her son was imperative against it. He did
not think it was necessary to put her to that distress and
inconvenience, and as he was now in a fair way of recovery it was his
particular desire that she should not be alarmed and made nervous by any
information of what he had passed through. But he would not keep it from
his dear Bessie, who had greater firmness, and who might rest assured he
was well cared for, as Christie had brought him to his own house, and
his old woman was a capital cook--a very material comfort for a
convalescent.

With a recollection of the warnings of a year and a half ago, Bessie
could not but ponder this news of Harry's illness with grave distress.
She wrote to Mr. Carnegie, and enclosed the letter for his opinion. Mr.
Carnegie respected her confidence, and told her that from the name of
the physician mentioned by Christie as in attendance on his patient he
was in the best possible hands. She confessed to Harry what she had
done, and he found no fault with her, bu