As the time went on letters from Beechhurst were fewer and farther
between; letters from Brook she had none, nor any mention of Harry
Musgrave in her mother's. Her grandfather desired to wean her from early
associations, and a mixture of pride and right feeling kept the
Carnegies from whatever could be misconstrued into a wish to thwart him.
No one came to see her from the Forest after that rash escapade of Harry
Musgrave's. Her eighteenth birthday passed, and she was still kept at
school both in school-time and holidays.

Madame Fournier, the genial canon, the kind _curé_, a few English
acquaintances at Caen, a few French acquaintances at Bayeux, were very
good to her. Especially she liked her visits to the canon's house in
summer. Often, as the long vacation of her third year at Caen
approached, she caught herself musing on the probability of her recall
to England with a reluctancy full of doubts and fears. She had been so
long away that she felt half forgotten, and when madame announced that
once more she was to spend the autumn under her protection, she heard it
without remonstrance, and, for the moment, with something like relief.
But afterward, when the house was silent and the girls were all gone,
the unbidden tears rose often to her eyes, and the yearning of
home-sickness came upon her as strongly as in the early days of her
exile.

Bayeux is a _triste_ little city, and in hot weather a perfect sun-trap
between its two hills. The river runs softly hidden amongst willows, and
the dust rises in light clouds with scarce a breath of air. Yet glimpses
of cool beautiful green within gates and over stone walls refresh the
eyes; vines drape the placid rustic nook that calls itself the library;
every other window in the streets is a garland or a posy, and through
the doors ajar show vistas of oleanders, magnolias, pomegranates