When the ladies reached Minster Court only Mr. Cecil Burleigh had arrived there.  Lady Angleby was impatient to hear some private details of the canvass, and took her nephew aside to talk of it.  Mr. Laurence Fairfax began to ask Bessie how long she was to stay at Brentwood.  “Until Monday,” Bessie said; and her eyes roved unconsciously to the cupboard under the bookcase where the toys lived, but it was fast shut and locked, and gave no sign of its hid treasures.  Her uncle’s eyes followed hers, and with a significant smile he said, if she pleased, he would request her grandfather to leave her with him for a few days, adding that he would find her some young companions.  Bessie professed that she would like it very much, and when Mr. Fairfax came in the request was preferred and cordially granted.  The squire was in high good-humor with his granddaughter and all the world just now.

Bessie went away from Minster Court with jubilant anticipations of what might happen during the proposed visit to her uncle’s house.  One thing she felt sure of:  she would become better acquainted with that darling cherub of a boy, and the vision she made of it shed quite a glow on the prospect.  She told Miss Burleigh when she returned to Brentwood that she was not going out of reach on Monday; she was going to stay a few days with her uncle Laurence in Minster Court.

“Cecil will be so glad!” said his devoted sister.

“There are no more Bullers to conquer, are there?” Bessie asked, turning her face aside.

“I hope not.  Oh no!  Cecil begins to be tolerably sure of his election, and he will have you to thank for it.  Mr. John Short blesses you every hour of the day.”

Bessie laughed lightly.  “I did good unconsciously, and blush to find it fame,” said she.

A fear that her brother’s success with Miss Fairfax might be doubtful, though his election was sure, flashed at that instant into Miss Burleigh’s mind.  Bessie’s manner was not less charming, but it was much more intrepid, and at intervals there was a strain of fun in it—­of mischief and mockery.  Was it the subacid flavor of girlish caprice, which might very well subsist in combination with her sweetness, or was it sheer insensibility?  Time would show, but Miss Burleigh retained a lurking sense of uneasiness akin to that she had experienced when she detected in Miss Fairfax, at their first meeting, an inclination to laugh at her aunt—­an uneasiness difficult to conceal and dangerous to confess.  Not for the world would she, at this stage of the affair, have revealed her anxiety to her brother, who held the even tenor of his way, whatever he felt—­never obtrusive and never negligent.  He treated Bessie like the girl of sense she was, with courtesy, but without compliments or any idle banter; and Bessie certainly began to enjoy his society.  He improved on acquaintance, and made the hours pass much more pleasantly at Brentwood when he was there than they