“It is Janey Christie.”  In fact, the artist was now making his wedding-tour, and Janey was his wife.

“Oh,” said Bessie, “then this was why your portfolio was so full of sketches at Yarmouth.  I wish I had known before.”

Janey’s face was one universal blush as she came forward and looked up in Miss Fairfax’s handsome, beneficent face.  There had always been an indulgent protectiveness in Bessie’s manner to the master-mariner’s little daughter, and it came back quite naturally.  Janey expected hasty questions, perhaps reproaches, perhaps coldness, but none of these were in Bessie’s way.  She had never felt herself ill used by Janey, and in the joy of the sudden rencounter did not recollect that she had anything to forgive.  She said how she had lived in the hope of a meeting again with Janey some day, and what a delightful thing it was to meet thus—­to find that her dear little comrade at school was married to Harry Musgrave’s best friend!  Janey had heard from her husband all the story of Bessie’s faithful love, but she was too timid and self-doubting to be very cordial or responsive.  Bessie therefore talked for both—­promised herself a renewal of their early friendship, and expressed an hospitable wish that Mr. Christie would bring his wife to visit them in Italy next year when he took his holiday.  Christie promised that he would, and thought Miss Fairfax more than ever good and charming; but Janey was almost happier when Bessie rode away with Mr. Carnegie and she was permitted to retire into seclusion again under the white umbrella.  The artist had chosen him a helpmeet who could be very devoted in private life, but who would never care for his professional honors or public reputation.  Bessie heard afterward that the master-mariner was dead, and the place in her heart that he had held was now her husband’s.  With her own more expansive and affectionate nature she felt a genial warmth of satisfaction in the meeting, and as she trotted along with the doctor she told him about Janey at school, and thought herself most fortunate to have been riding with him that morning.

“For I really fear the little shy creature would never have come near me had I not fallen in with her where she could not escape,” said she.

“Christie has been even less ambitious in his marriage than yourself, Bessie,” was the doctor’s reply.  “That one-idead little woman may worship him, but she will be no help.  She will not attract friends to his house, even if she be not jealous of them; and he will have to go out and leave her at home; and that is a pity, for an artist ought to live in the world.”

“She is docile, but not trustful.  Oh, he will tame her, and she will try to please him,” said Bessie cheerfully.  “She fancied that I must have forgotten her, when there was rarely a day that she did not come into my mind.  And she says the same of me, yet neither of us ever wrote or made any effort to find the other out.”