At breakfast, Mr. Fairfax handed a letter to Bessie. "From home, from my mother," said she in a glad undertone, and instantly, without apology, opened and read it. Mr. Cecil Burleigh took a furtive observation of her while she was thus occupied. What a good countenance she had! how the slight emotion of her lips and the lustrous shining under her dark eyelashes enhanced her beauty! It was a letter to make her happy, to give her a light heart to go to Brentwood with. Mrs. Carnegie was always sympathetic, cheerful, and loving in her letters. She encouraged her dear Bessie to reconcile herself to absence, and attach herself to her new home by cultivating all its sources of interest, and especially the affection of her grandfather. She gave her much tender, reasonable advice for her guidance, and she gave her good news: they were all well at home and at Brook, and Harry Musgrave had come out in honors at Oxford. The sunshine of pure content irradiated Bessie's face. She looked up; she wanted to communicate her joy. Her grandfather looked up at the same moment, and their eyes met. "Would you like to read it? It is from my mother," she said, holding out the letter with an impulse to be good to him. "I can trust you with your correspondence, Elizabeth," was his reply. She drew back her hand quickly, and laid down the letter by her plate. She sipped her tea, her throat aching, her eyes swimming. The squire began to talk rather fast and loud, and in a few minutes, the meal being over, he pushed away his chair and left the room. "The train we go into Norminster by reaches Mitford Junction at ten thirty-five," observed Mr. Cecil Burleigh. Bessie rose and vanished with a mutinous air, which made him laugh and whisper to his sister, as she disappeared, that the young lady had a rare spirit. Mr. Fairfax was in the hall. She went swiftly up to him, and laying a hand on his arm, said, in a quivering, resolute voice, "Read my letter, grandpapa. If you will not recognize those I have the best right to love, we shall be strangers always, you and I." "Come up stairs: I will read your letter," said the old man shortly, and he mounted to her parlor, she still keeping her hold on his arm. He stood at her table and read it, and laid it down without a word, but, glancing aside at her pleasing face, he was moved to kiss her, and then promptly effected his escape from her tyranny. He was not displeased, and Bessie was triumphant. "Now we can begin to be friends," she cried softly, clapping her hands. "I refuse to be frightened. I shall always tell him my news, and make him listen. If he is sarcastic, I won't care. He will respect me if I assert my right to be respected, and maintain that my father and mother at Beechhurst have the first and best claim on my love. He shall not recognize them as belonging only to my past life; he shall acknowledge them as belonging to me always. And Harry too!"