Bessie did not know that she had been loved so much.  Girl-like, she had brought her tribute of flowers to the invalid’s room, had wondered at this half-paralyzed life that was surrounded by such an atmosphere of peace; and when, during her last visit, she had realized what a compensation for all sorrow was this peace, she had not yet understood what an ardor of sympathy kept the poor sufferer’s heart warm towards those whose brighter lot had nothing in common with her own.

“Oh, my love,” she said in a sweet, thrilling voice, “dear Harry Musgrave has been to tell me of his happiness.  I am so glad for you both—­so very, very glad!” She did not pause to let Bessie respond, but ran on with her recollections of Harry since he was a boy and came first to read with her husband.  “His thoughtfulness was really quite beautiful; he never forgot to be kind.  Oh, my dear, you may thoroughly rely on his fine, affectionate temper.  Rarely did he come to a lesson without bringing me some message from his mother and little present in his hand—­a few flowers, a spring chicken, some nice fruit, a partridge.  This queer rustic scaffold for my books and work, Harry constructed it himself, and I would not exchange it for the most elegant and ingenious of whatnots.  I could do nothing for him but listen to his long thoughts and aspirations:  that was when you were out of hearing, and he could neither talk nor write to his dear little Bessie.”

“It was a great gap, but it did not make us strangers,” said Bessie.

“When he went to Oxford he sent us word of his arrival, and how he liked his college and his tutor—­matters that were as interesting to us as if he had been our own.  And when he found how welcome his letters were, he wrote to Mr. Moxon often, and sent him any report or pamphlet that he thought might please him; and several times he gave himself the trouble both at the Bodleian and in London to search for and copy out extracts from works that Mr. Moxon wanted and had no means of procuring here.  You can have no idea how helpful he has been to my husband in such things.  Poor fellow! what a grief it was to us that term he had to stay away from Oxford on account of his health!  Already we began to fear for the future, but his buoyant spirit would not anticipate any permanent hindrance to his progress; and that check did make him more prudent.  But it is not to be; he sees himself cut short of the career where he planned to be famous; he gives way, however, to neither anger nor repining.  Oh, my love! that I could win you to believe that if you clasp this cross to your heart, as the gift of Him who cannot err, you will never feel it a burden!”

Bessie smiled.  She did not feel it a burden now, and Harry was not abandoned to carry its weight alone.  She did not speak:  she was not apt at the expression of her religious feelings, but they were sincere as far as life had taught her.  She could have lent her ears for a long while to Harry Musgrave’s praises without growing weary, but the vicar now appeared, followed by the doctor, talking in a high, cheerful voice of that discovery he had made of a remarkable mathematical genius in Littlemire:  “A most practical fellow, a wonderful hard head—­will turn out an enterprising engineer, an inventor, perhaps; has the patience of Job himself, and an infinite genius for taking pains.”