"No, my dear, there you are mistaken. She is too fussy; she irritates people. But for the old admiral she would often get into difficulties. Beechhurst has taken to ladies' meetings and committees, and all sorts of fudge that she is the moving spirit of. I often wish we were back in the quiet, times when dear old Hutton was rector, and would not let her be always interfering. I suppose it comes of this new doctrine of the equality of the sexes; but I say they never will be equal till women consent to be frights. It gives a man an immense pull over us to clap on his hat without mounting up stairs to the looking-glass: while we are getting ready to go and do a thing, he has gone and done it. You hear Lady Latimer's name at every turn, but the old admiral is the backbone of Beechhurst, as he always was, and old Phipps is his right hand." "And Mr. Musgrave and my father?" queried Bessie. "They do their part, but it is so unobtrusively that one forgets them; but they would be missed if they were not there. Mr. Musgrave has a great deal of influence amongst his own class--the farmers and those people. Of course, you have heard how wonderfully his son is getting on at college? Oh, my dear, what a stir there was about his running over to Normandy after you!" "Dear Harry! I saw him again quite lately. He came to see me at Bayeux," said Bessie with a happy sigh. "Did he? we never heard of that. He is at home now: perhaps he will come over with them to-morrow, eh?" "I wish he would," was Bessie's frank rejoinder. "And who else is there that you used to like? Fanny Mitten has married a clerk in the Hampton Bank, and Miss Ely is married; but she was married in London. I was in great hopes once that old Phipps would take Miss Thusy O'Flynn, and a sweet pair they would have been; but he thought better of it, and she went away as she came. Her aunt was a good old soul, and what did it matter if she was vulgar? We were very sorry to lose her contralto in the choir." Miss Buff's gossip was almost run out. Bessie remembered little Christie to inquire for him. "Little Christie--who is he? I never heard of him. Oh, the wheelwright's son who went away to be an artist! I don't know. The old man made me a garden-barrow once, and charged me enormously; and when I told him it was too dear, he said it would last me my life. Such impertinence! The common people grow very independent."