“As for Christie, prudent old fogy that he is, what can he know of our miseries?” said Harry with assumed ruefulness “He has a mansion in Cheyne Walk and a balcony looking over the river, and a vigilant housekeeper who allows no latch-key and turns off the gas at eleven.  She gives him perfect little dinners, and makes him too comfortable by half:  we poor apprentices to law lodge and fare very rudely.”

“He has the air of being well done to, which is more than could be said for you when first you arrived at home, Harry,” remarked his mother with what struck Bessie as a long and wistful gaze.

“Too much smell of the midnight oil is poison to country lungs—­mind what I tell you,” said the doctor, emphasizing his words with a grave nod at the young man.

“He ought to be content with less of his theatres and his operas and supper-parties if he will read and write so furiously.  A young fellow can’t combine the lives of a man of study and a man of leisure without stealing too many hours from his natural rest.  But I talk in vain—­talk you, Mr. Carnegie,” said Christie with earnestness.

“A man must work, and work hard, now-a-days, if he means to do or be anything,” said Harry defiantly.

“It is the pace that kills,” said the doctor.  “The mischief is, that you ardent young fellows never know when to stop.  And in public life, my lad, there is many a one comes to acknowledge that he has made more haste than good speed.”

Harry sank back in his chair with laughing resignation; it was too bad, he said, to talk of him to his face so dismally.  Bessie Fairfax was looking at him, her eyebrows raised, and fancying she saw a change; he was certainly not so brown as he used to be, nor so buoyant, nor so animated.  But it would have perplexed her to define what the change she fancied was.  Conscious of her observation, Harry dissembled a minute, then pushed back his chair, and invited her to come away to the old sitting-room, where the evening sun shone.  No one offered to follow them; they were permitted to go alone.

The sitting-room looked a trifle more dilapidated, but was otherwise unaltered, and was Harry’s own room still, by the books, pens, ink, and paper on the table.  Being by themselves, silence ensued.  Bessie sadly wondered whether anything was really going wrong with her beloved Harry, and he knew that she was wondering.  Then she remembered what young Christie had said at Castlemount of his being occasionally short of money, and would have liked to ask.  But when she had reflected a moment she did not dare.  Their boy-and-girl days, their days of plain, outspoken confidence, were for ever past.  That one year of absence spent by him in London, by her at Abbotsmead, had insensibly matured the worldly knowledge of both, and without a word spoken each recognized the other’s position, but without diminution of their ancient kindness.