hurt me. And when I have seen him I will go back
to Fairfield. But tell me what ails him: has he been over-working, or is
it the results of his illness?" Bessie was very earnest to know all
there was to be known.

"Work is not to blame: the lad was always more or less delicate, though
his frame was so powerful," Mr. Carnegie said with gravity. "He is out
of spirits, and he has had a warning to beware of the family complaint.
That is not to say it has marked him yet--he may live for years, with
care and prudence live to a good old age--but there is no public career
before him; and it is a terrible prospect, this giving up and coming
down, to a young fellow of his temper. His mother sits and looks at him,
beats on her knee, deplores the money spent on his college education,
and frets; you must try your hand at some other sort of consolation,
Bessie, for that will never do. Now, if you are going, my dear, you had
better start."

Mrs. Carnegie wished she could have offered herself as Bessie's
companion, but she would have been an impediment rather than a help, and
Bessie set out alone. She had gone that way to Brook many and many a
time, but never quite alone before. It seemed, at first, strange to her
to be walking across the open heath by herself, and yet she felt,
somehow, as if it had all happened before--perhaps in a dream. It was a
warm afternoon towards six o'clock, and the August glow of the heather
in blossom spread everywhere like a purple sea. At the gate of the
Forest Farm the cows were gathered, with meek patience expecting their
call to the milking-shed; but after she passed under the shade of the
trees beyond Great-Ash Ford she met not a creature until she came in
sight of the wicket opening into the wood from the manor-garden. And
there was Harry Musgrave himself.

Approaching over the turf with her light swift foot, Bessie drew quite
near to him unheard, and saw him before he saw her. He had seated
himself on a fallen tree, and leant his head on his hand in an easy
attitude; his countenance was abstracted rather than sad, and his eyes,
fixed on the violet and amber of the sky in the west, were full of
tranquil watching. Bessie's voice as she cried out his name was
tremulous with joy, and her face as he turned and saw her was beautiful
with the flush of young love's delight.

"I was waiting for you. I knew you would come, my dear, my dear!" was
his greeting. They went into the garden hand in hand, silen