This was too much for the gravity of the young people.  “A bishop, Bessie!  Can you array me in lawn sleeves and satin gown?” cried Harry with a peal of laughter.  Then, with a sudden recovery and a sigh, he said, “Nay, mother, if I must play a part, it shall not be on that stage.  I’ll keep my self-respect, whatever else I forfeit.”

“You will have your own way, Harry, lead where it will; your father and me have not that to learn at this time of day.  But, Bessie joy, Mr. Carnegie’s in a hurry, and it is a good step to Fairfield.  We shall see you often while you are in the Forest, I hope?”

“Staying with Lady Latimer is not quite the same as being at home, but I shall try to come again.”

“Do, dear—­we shall be more than pleased; you were ever a favorite at Brook,” said Mrs. Musgrave tenderly.  Bessie kissed Harry’s mother, shook hands with himself and his father, who also patted her on the back as a reminder of old familiarity, and then went off with Mr. Carnegie, light-hearted and light-footed, a picture of young content.  The doctor, after one glance at her blithe face, thought that he could tell his wife when he got home who it was their little Bessie really loved.

Harry Musgrave took his hat to set Christie part of the way back to Beechhurst in the opposite direction.  The young men talked as they walked, Christie resuming the argument that the apparition of Bessie Fairfax had interrupted in the afternoon.  The argument was that which Mrs. Musgrave had enunciated against the study of the law.  Harry was not much moved by it.  If he had a new motive for prudence, he had also a new and very strong motive for persistence.  Christie suspected as much, but the name of Miss Fairfax was not mentioned.

“You have made your mark in that review, and literature is as fair a profession as art if a man will only be industrious,” he said.

“I hate the notion of task-work and drudgery in literature; and what sort of a living is to be got out of our inspirations?” objected Harry.

“It is good to bear the yoke in our youth:  I find it discipline to paint pot-boilers,” rejoined little Christie mildly.  “You must write pot-boilers for the magazines.  The best authors do it.”

“It is not easy to get a footing in a magazine where one would care to appear.  There are not many authors whose sole dependence is a goose-quill.  Call over the well-known men; they are all something else before they are authors.  Your pot-boilers are sure of a market; pictures have become articles of furniture, indispensable to people of taste, and everybody has a taste now-a-days.  But rejected papers are good for nothing but to light one’s fire, if one can keep a fire.  Look at Stamford!  Stamford has done excellent work for thirty years; he has been neither idle nor thriftless, and he lives from hand to mouth still.  He is one of the writers for bread, who must take the price he can get, and not refuse it, lest he get nothing.  And that would be my case—­is my case—­for, as you know, my pen provides two-thirds of my maintenance.  I cannot tax my father further.  If I had not missed that fellowship!  The love of money may be a root of evil, but the want of it is an evil grown up and bearing fruit that sets the teeth on edge.”