Mr. Cecil Burleigh had not visited Minster Court that day:  was this the reason?  Bessie was not absolutely indifferent to the omission, but she had other diversions.  That night she went up stairs with the young mother (so young that Elizabeth could not fashion to call her by her title of kindred) to view the boys in their cots, and saw her so loving and tender over them that she could not but reflect how dear a companion she must be to her philosopher after his lost Xantippe.  She was such a sweet and gentle lady that, though he had chosen to marry her privately, he could have no reluctance in producing her as his wife.  He had kept her to himself unspoilt, had much improved her in their retired life, and as he had no intention of bringing her into rivalry with finer ladies, the charm of her adoring simplicity was not likely to be impaired.  He had set his mind on his niece Elizabeth for her friend from the first moment of their meeting, and except Elizabeth he did not desire that she should find, at present, any intimate friend of her own sex.  And Elizabeth was perfectly ready to be her friend, and to care nothing for the change in her own prospects.

“You know that my boys will make all the difference to you?” her uncle said to her the next day, being a few minutes alone with her.

“Oh yes, I understand, and I shall be the happier in the end.  Abbotsmead will be quite another place when they come over,” was her reply.

“There is my father to conciliate before they can come to Abbotsmead.  He is deeply aggrieved, and not without cause.  You may help to smooth the way to comfortable relations again, or at least to prevent a widening breach.  I count on that, because he has permitted you to come here, though he knows that Rosy and the boys are with me.  I should not have had any right to complain had he denied us your visit.”

“But I should have had a right to complain, and I should have complained,” said Bessie.  “My grandfather and I are friends now, because I have plucked up courage to assert my right to respect myself and my friends who brought me up; otherwise we must have quarrelled soon.”

Mr. Laurence Fairfax smiled:  “My father can be obstinately unforgiving.  So he was to my brother Geoffry and his wife; so he may be to me, though we have never had a disagreement.”

“I could fancy that he was sometimes sorry for his unkindness to my father.  I shall not submit if he attempt to forbid me your house or the joy of seeing my little cousins.  Oh, his heart must soften to them soon.  I am glad he saw Justus, the darling!”