And none the less a bower for those two young people in it this afternoon.  Mr. Carnegie had dropped Bessie at Brook in the morning, and young Musgrave was to escort her home in the cool of the evening.  His mother and she had spent an hour together since the midday dinner, and now the son of the house had called for her.  They sat one on each side of the long oak board which served young Musgrave for a study-table and stood endwise towards the middle lattice.  Harry had a new poem before him, which he was tired of reading.  The light and shadow played on both their faces.  There was a likeness for those who could see it—­the same frank courage in their countenances, the same turn for reverie in their eyes.  Harry felt lazy.  The heat, the drowsy hum of bees in the vine-blossoms, and the poetry-book combined, had made him languid.  Then he had bethought him of his comrade.  Bessie came gladly, and poured out in full recital the events that had happened to her of late.  To these she added the projects and anticipations of the future.

“Dear little Bessie! she fancies she is on the eve of adventures.  Terribly monotonous adventures a girl’s must be!” said the conceit of masculine twenty.

“I wish I had been a boy—­it must be much better fun,” was the whimsical rejoinder of feminine fifteen.

“And you should have been my chum,” said young Musgrave.

“That is just what I should have liked.  Caen is nearer to Beechhurst than it is to Woldshire, so I shall come home for my holidays.  Perhaps I shall never see you again, Harry, when I am transported to Woldshire.”  This with a pathetic sigh.

“Never is a long day.  I shall find you out; and if I don’t, you’ll hear of me.  I mean to be heard of, Bessie.”

“Oh yes, Harry, I am sure you will.  Shall you write a book?  Will it be a play?  They always seem to walk to London with a play in their pockets, a tragedy that the theatres won’t look at; and then their troubles begin.”

Young Musgrave smiled superior at Bessie’s sentiment and Bessie’s syntax.  “There is the railway, and Oxford is on the road.  I intend always to travel first-class,” said he.

Bessie understood him to speak literally.  “First-class!  Oh, but that is too grand!  In the Lives they never have much money.  Some are awfully poor—­starving:  Savage was, and Chatterton and Otway.”

“Shabby, disreputable vagabonds!” answered young Musgrave lightly.

“And Samuel Johnson and ever so many more,” continued Bessie, pleading his sympathy.

“There is no honor in misery; it is picturesque to read about, but it is a sorry state in reality to be very poor.  Some poets have been scamps.  I shall not start as the prodigal son, Bessie, for I love not swinish company nor diet of husks.”

“The prodigal came home to his father, Harry.”

“So he did, but I have my doubts whether he stayed.”

There was a silence.  Bessie had always believed in the prodigal as a good son after his repentance.  Any liberty of speculation as concerning Scripture gave her pause; it was a new thing at Beechhurst and at Brook.