"My dear Daisy, don't look so perturbed. This is Liberty Hall, and our guests always do exactly as they please. I would not interfere with your little prudish ways for the world. I do not require your company in the least. You may retire to your own room and read the 'Pilgrim's Progress,' with the blinds down, if you please, and mamma and I will not say a word. There's Blair's 'Sermons' in the attic, and Hervey's 'Meditations Among the Tombs.' They are a bit dusty, perhaps, but you won't object to that, for they are full of wholesome and cheerful reading." "Thank you," returned Bessie, undisturbed by this light banter. "But I brought a book from home, in which I am much interested--'Bishop Hannington's Life'--and as you are so good as to spare me, I mean to explore some of those shady lanes; they are so nice and quiet." Edna was about to make another mischievous rejoinder, but as she looked at Bessie she refrained. Bessie's contented, gentle expression, the quiet dignity that seemed to invest her girlishness, closed Edna's mouth. "She is a good little thing, and I won't tease her," she thought. And she refrained with much magnanimity from one of her droll speeches when Maud Atherton asked where Miss Lambert was. "She preferred taking a walk," returned Edna; which was the truth, but not the whole truth, for, as she said to herself, "those girls shall not have the chance of laughing at my dear little Bessie." And she cleverly changed the conversation to a safer topic; for she was quite a diplomatist in her small way. "Edna is really very good-natured," thought Bessie gratefully, as she sauntered happily through the leafy lanes. How delicious the air felt! It was June, and yet there was still the crispness of the spring. She felt as though she and the birds had this beautiful world to themselves, and the twitterings and rustlings in the thicket were the only sounds that broke the Sabbath stillness. Bessie had just turned into a sunny bit of road when an abject-looking white dog with a black patch over his eye suddenly wriggled himself through a half-closed gate. "Why, I do believe that is Bill Sykes," thought Bessie, as the creature stood looking at her. "Bill, what are you doing so far from home?" Bill wagged his tail feebly in a deprecating manner. "Why don't you walk like a gentleman?" continued Bessie, and, to her great amusement, the dog rose solemnly on his hind legs and commenced stalking down the lane. Bessie burst into a laugh that was echoed by another voice.