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Updated: June 28, 2025
Let us return to the octagon parlor; it is cheerful with a fire after dinner. At Abbotsmead there are not many evenings when a fire is not acceptable at dusk." The fire was very acceptable; it was very composing and pleasant. Bright flashes of flame kindled and reddened the fragrant dry pine chips and played about the lightly-piled logs. 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.
She will come over to Abbotsmead the day after to-morrow." Bessie could not help being reminded by her grandfather's face and voice of another old Beechhurst friend Mr. Phipps. Perhaps this luncheon at Hartwell had been pleasanter to her than to him, though even she had an aftertaste of disappointment in it, because Lady Latimer no longer dazzled her judgment.
Bessie had dropt her mask and showed her bright face, at peace for the moment; but it was shadowed again by the resurrection of all her wrongs when her grandfather said on bidding her good-night, "Perhaps, Elizabeth, the assurance that will tend most to promote your comfort at Abbotsmead, to begin with, is that you have a perfect right to be here." Her astonishment was too genuine to be hidden.
"It must be dreadful to miss little children when you have lived with them. I could not bear it. Abbotsmead always looks to me like a great dull splendid prison." "My grandfather makes it as pleasant to me as he can; I don't repine," said Bessie quickly.
Bessie returned to Kirkham a changed creature. Her hopefulness had rallied to the front. Her mind was filled with blithe anticipations founded on that dear little naughty boy and his incongruous cupboard of playthings in her uncle's study. If there was a boy for heir to Abbotsmead, nobody would want her; she might go back to the Forest. Secrets and mysteries always come out in the end.
From the day I saw them together at Ryde I had no other thought. He was grandpapa's friend, grandpapa forwarded his election for Norminster, and as I was the young lady of the house at Abbotsmead, it was not singular that he should be kind and attentive to me, was it? I am quite certain that he was as little in love with me as I was with him, though he did invite me to be his wife.
Your grandfather, the old squire, would have been better pleased had it been some other lady, because of what was in the blood, but he did not offer to stop it, and they lived at Abbotsmead after they were married. The house was all new done-up to welcome her; that octagon parlor was her design. She brought Mr. Frederick a great fortune, and they loved one another dearly, but it did not last long.
"What a darling little naughty boy that was!" whispered Bessie, also laughing. "How I should like to have him at Abbotsmead! What fun it would be!" "Mind, you don't mention him at Abbotsmead. Mr. Fairfax will be the last to hear of him; the mother must be some unpresentable person. If Mr. Laurence Fairfax is married, it will be so much the worse for you."
Their boy-and-girl days, their days of plain, outspoken confidence, were for ever past. That one year of absence spent by him in London, by her at Abbotsmead, had insensibly matured the worldly knowledge of both, and without a word spoken each recognized the other's position, but without diminution of their ancient kindness.
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