“Mrs. Betts was so thoughtful as to come on by an earlier train to get unpacked and warn us to be prepared,” Macky observed in a respectful explanatory tone; and then she went on to offer her good wishes to the young lady she had nursed, in the manner of an old and trusted dependant of the family.  “It is fine weather and a fine time of year, and we hope and pray all of us, Miss Fairfax, as this will be a blessed bringing-home for you and our dear master.  Most of us was here servants when Mr. Geoffry, your father, went south.  A cheerful, pleasant gentleman he was, and your mamma as pleasant a lady.  And here is Mrs. Betts to wait on you.”

Bessie thanked the old woman, and would have bidden her remain and talk on about her forgotten parents, but Macky with another curtsey retired, and Mrs. Betts, calm and peremptory, proceeded to array her young lady in her prize-day muslin dress, and sent her hastily down stairs under the guidance of a little page who loitered in the gallery.  At the foot of the stairs a lean, gray-headed man in black received her, and ushered her into a beautiful octagon-shaped room, all garnished with books and brilliant with light, where her grandfather was waiting to conduct her to dinner.  So much ceremony made Bessie feel as if she was acting a part in a play.  Since Macky’s kind greeting her spirits had risen, and her countenance had cleared marvellously.

Mr. Fairfax was standing opposite the door when she appeared.  “Good God! it is Dolly!” he exclaimed, visibly startled.  Dolly was his sister Dorothy, long since dead.  Not only in face and figure, but in a certain lightness of movement and a buoyant swift way of stepping towards him, Elizabeth recalled her.  Perhaps there was something in the simplicity of her dress too:  there on the wall was a pretty miniature of her great-aunt in blue and white and golden flowing hair to witness the resemblance.  Mr. Fairfax pointed it out to his granddaughter, and then they went to dinner.

It was a very formal ceremonial, and rather tedious to the newly-emancipated school-girl.  Jonquil served his master when he was alone, but this evening he was reinforced by a footman in blue and silver, by way of honor to the young lady.  Elizabeth faced her grandfather across a round table.  A bowl-shaped chandelier holding twelve wax-lights hung from the groined ceiling above the rose-decked epergne, making a bright oasis in the centre of a room gloomy rather from the darkness of its fittings than from the insufficiency of illumination.  Under the soft lustre the plate, precious for its antique beauty, the quaint cut glass, and old blue china enriched with gold were displayed to perfection.  Bessie had a taste, her eye was gratified, there was repose in all this splendor.  But still she felt that odd sensation of acting in a comedy which would be over as soon as the lights were out.  Suddenly she recollected the bare board in the Rue St. Jean, the coarse white platters, the hunches of sour bread, the lenten soup, the flavorless bouilli, and sighed—­sighed audibly, and when her grandfather asked her why that mournful sound, she told him.  Her courage never forsook her long.