Towards the middle of the month Mr. Cecil Burleigh came again, bringing his sister with him to stay to the end of it.  Bessie was very glad of her society, and when her feminine acumen had discerned Miss Burleigh’s relations with the vicar she did not grudge the large share of it that was given to his mother:  she reflected that it was a pity these elderly lovers should lose time.  What did they wait for, Mr. Forbes and his gentle Mary, Mr. Cecil Burleigh and his sweet Julia?  She would have liked to arrange their affairs speedily.

Mr. Cecil Burleigh went to and fro between Norminster and Abbotsmead as his business required, and if opportunity and propinquity could have advanced his suit, he had certainly no lack of either.  But he felt that he was not prospering with Miss Fairfax:  she was most animated, amiable and friendly, but she was not in a propitious mood to be courted.  Bessie was to go to Brentwood for the nomination-day, and to remain until the election was over.  By this date it had begun to dawn on other perceptions besides Mr. Cecil Burleigh’s that she was not a young lady in love.  His sister struggled against this conviction as long as she was able, and when it prevailed over her hopefulness she ventured to speak of it to him.  He was not unprepared.

“I am, after all, afraid, Cecil, that Miss Fairfax may turn out an uninteresting person,” she began diffidently.

“Because I fail to interest her, Mary—­is that it?” said her brother.

“She perplexes me by her cool, capricious behavior. Now I think her very dear and sweet, and that she appreciates you; then she looks or says something mocking, and I don’t know what to think.  Does she care for any one else, I should like to know?”

“Perhaps she made some such discovery at Ryde for me.”

“She told me of your meeting with the Gardiners there.  Poor Julia!  I wish it could be Julia, Cecil.”

“I doubt whether it will ever be Miss Fairfax, Mary.  She is the oddest mixture of wit and simplicity.”

“Perhaps she has some old prepossession?  She would not be persuaded against her will.”

“All her prepossessions are in favor of her friends in the Forest.  There was a young fellow for whom she had a childish fondness—­he was at Bayeux when I called upon her there.”

“Harry Musgrave?  Oh, they are like brother and sister; she told me so.”

“She is a good girl, and believes it, perhaps; but it is a brother-and-sisterhood likely to lapse into warmer relations, given the opportunity.  That is what Mr. Fairfax is intent on hindering.  My hope was in her youth, but she is not to be won by the semblance of wooing.  She is either calmly unconscious or consciously discouraging.”

“How will Mr. Fairfax bear his disappointment?”

“The recent disclosure of his son Laurence’s marriage will lessen that.  It is no longer of the same importance who Miss Fairfax marries.  She has a great deal of character, and may take her own way.  She is all anxiety now to heal the division between the father and son, that she may have the little boys over at Abbotsmead; and she will succeed before long.  The disclosure was made just in time, supposing it likely to affect my intentions; but Miss Fairfax is still an excellent match for me—­for me or any gentleman of my standing.”