“We have come from Beechhurst this morning, my niece Louy and myself,” was Miss Buff’s answer to the first.  “We started at six, to be in time for the eight o’clock boat:  the flower-show and the regatta ball have brought us.  I hope you are going to both?  No?  What a pity!  I never miss a ball for Louy if I can help it.”

Bessie briefly explained herself and her circumstances, and asked when her friend had last seen any of Mr. Carnegie’s family.

“I saw Mrs. Carnegie yesterday to inquire if I could do anything for her at Hampton.  She looked very well.”

“And did she say nothing of me?” cried Bessie in consternation.

“Not a word.  She mentioned some time ago how sorry they all were not to have you at home for a little while before you are carried away to Woldshire.”

“Then Mr. Wiley has never given them my message!  Oh, how unkind!” Bessie was fit to cry for vexation and self-reproach, for why had she not written?  Why had she trusted anybody when there was a post?

“You might as well pour water into a sieve, and expect it to stay there, as expect Mr. Wiley to remember anything that does not concern himself,” said Miss Buff.  “But it is not too late yet, perhaps?  When do you leave Ryde?”

“It is all uncertain:  it is just as the wind blows and as my uncle fancies,” replied Bessie despondently.

“Then write—­write at once, and telegraph.  Do both.  There is Smith’s bookstall.  They will let you have a sheet of paper, and I always carry stamps.”  Miss Buff was prompt in action.  Six lines were written for the post and one line for the telegraph, and both were despatched in ten minutes or less.  “Now all is done that can be done to remedy yesterday and ensure to-morrow:  some of them are certain to appear in the morning.  Make your mind easy.  Come back to our seat and tell me all about yourself.”

Bessie’s cheerfulness revived under the brisk influence of her friend, and she was ready to give an epitome of her annals, or a forecast of her hopes, or (which she much preferred) to hear the chronicles of Beechhurst.  Miss Buff was the best authority for the village politics that she could have fallen in with.  She knew everything that went on in the parish—­not quite accurately perhaps, but accurately enough for purposes of popular information and gossip.

“Well, my dear, Miss Thusy O’Flynn is gone, for one good thing,” she began with a verve that promised thoroughness.  “And we are to have a new organ in the church, for another:  it has been long enough talked about.  Old Phipps set his face dead against it until we got the money in hand; we have got it, but not until we are all at daggers drawn.  He told Lady Latimer that we ought to keep our liberal imaginations in check by a system of cash payments.”

“Our friend has a disagreeable trick of being right,” said Bessie laughing.