Lady Latimer stood up and motioned to all the young people to come away. They vanished in retiring, some one road, some another, and for the next five minutes Bessie was left with my lady alone, angry and exquisitely uncomfortable, but not half alive yet to the comic aspect of her very original behavior. She glanced with shy deprecation in Lady Latimer's face, and my lady smiled with a perfect sympathy in her sensations.
"You are not afraid to speak up for an absent friend, but silence is the best answer to such impertinences," said she, and then went on to talk of Abbotsmead and Kirkham till Bessie was almost cheated of her distressing self-consciousness.
Fairfield was a small house, but full of prettiness. Bessie Fairfax had never seen anything so like a picture as the drawing-room, gay with flowers, perfumed, airy, all graceful ease and negligent comfort. From a wide-open glass door a flight of steps descended to the rose-garden, now in its beauty. Paintings, mirrors decorated the walls; books strewed the tables. There were a hundred things, elegant, grotesque, and useless, to look at and admire. How vivid, varied, delicious life must be thus adorned! Bessie thought, and lost herself a little while in wonder and curiosity. Then she turned to Lady Latimer again. My lady had lost herself in reverie too; her countenance had an expression of weary restlessness and unsatisfied desire. No doubt she had her private cares. Bessie felt afraid, as if she had unwittingly surprised a secret.
Visitors were announced. The gentlemen came from the dining-room. Mr. Bernard and Margaret appeared from the rose-garden. So did some of the little girls, and invited Bessie down the steps. There was a general hum of voices and polite laughter. More visitors, more conversation, more effort. Bessie began to feel tired of the restraint, and looked up to her grandfather, who stood in the doorway talking to Margaret. The next minute he came to her, and said, with as much consideration as if she were a grown-up person, "You have had enough of this, Elizabeth. It is time we were returning to Beechhurst."
Margaret understood. "You wish to go? Come, then; I will take you to my room to put on your hat," said she.