It was wonderful to observe the way in which Bessie and the child agreed; more wonderful still, perhaps, to notice the manner in which the former wound all the household round her finger. It was Bessie this, and Bessie that. She retrimmed the girls’ bonnets; she taught them the latest mode of dressing hair; she could change old garments into new by some dexterous sleight-of-hand. Ribbons and laces, deemed useless before her arrival, and cast aside, as tossed and torn, reappeared after her advent in forms that delighted the hearts of Arthur Dudley’s sisters. She was “good for everything,” the boys declared. Pretty and coquettish herself, she liked to see other girls pretty and coquettish too; and during her visit the Misses Dudley went about with wild flowers in their hair, with dainty bouquets in their belts, with dresses guiltless of a crease, “making much of themselves,” as Bessie phrased it. How she revelled in that house! How she, so constantly a prisoner among bricks and mortar, loved the freedom and the liberty of that country life! How she stood drinking in the pure, undefiled air, that came floating over the fields and the hedgerows to her! Much as the young Dudleys loved their home, they had not that appreciation of every flower and leaf, of every effect of light and shade, which astonished them in their guest. Her love of the country was keen and sharp, like the relish of a half-starved man for food. Here, at last, was a life to be desired—a life idly busy, sinlessly sensuous;—here was a lotus land of indolent industry, bright with sunshine, where the air was full of all delicious perfumes—where the days were happy and the nights calm—where the morning dawned upon a peaceful household—where the moon looked down, not upon a turbulent sea of human woes, sorrows, sins, passions, disappointments, but on the pleasant fields where the grass was springing, and the sheep lay dotted about on the soft green slopes. The birds in the hedges, the ferns in the dells, the soft cushions of moss, which she would caress with her little hand and touch with her lips, as though such delicious greenery must be conscious of her caresses; the branches waving in the breeze, the whirling of the pigeons in the air, the hundred sounds of the country,—all these things had charms for Bessie which made the Dudleys find her a most appreciative and delightful companion.