It was on the cards that he might become to her a most indulgent, fond
old man; but then Elizabeth must be submissive, and do his will in great
things if he allowed her to rule in small. Bessie had dropt her mask and
showed her bright face, at peace for the moment; but it was shadowed
again by the resurrection of all her wrongs when her grandfather said on
bidding her good-night, "Perhaps, Elizabeth, the assurance that will
tend most to promote your comfort at Abbotsmead, to begin with, is that
you have a perfect right to be here."

Her astonishment was too genuine to be hidden. Did her grandfather
imagine that she was flattered by her domicile in his grand house? It
was exile to her quite as much as the old school at Caen. Nothing had
ever occurred to shake her original conviction that she was cruelly used
in being separated from her friends in the Forest. _They_ were her
family--not these strangers. Bessie dropped him her embarrassed
school-girl's curtsey, and said, "Good-night, sir"--not even a Thank
you! Mr. Fairfax thought her manner abrupt, but he did not know the
depth and tenacity of her resentment, or he would have recognized the
blunder he had committed in bringing her into Woldshire with unsatisfied
longings after old, familiar scenes.

Bessie was of a thoroughly healthy nature and warmly affectionate. She
felt very lonely and unfriended; she wished that her grandfather had
said he was glad to have her at Abbotsmead, instead of telling her that
she had a _right_ to be there; but she was also very tired, and sleep
soon prevailed over both sweet and bitter fancies. Premature resolutions
she made none; she had been warned against them by Madame Fournier as
mischievous impediments to making the best of life, which is so much
less often "what we could wish than what we must even put up with."