Bessie Fairfax had been but a few days at home after the Brentwood rejoicings when there came for her an invitation from Mrs. Chiverton to spend a week at Castlemount. She was perfectly ready to go--more ready to go than her grandfather was to part with her. She read him the letter at breakfast; he said he would think about it, and at luncheon he had not yet made up his mind. Before post-time, however, he supposed he must let her choose her own associates, and if she chose Mrs. Chiverton for old acquaintance' sake, he would not refuse his consent, but Mr. Chiverton and he were not on intimate terms.
Bessie went to Castlemount under escort of Mrs. Betts. Mrs. Chiverton was rejoiced to welcome her. "I like Miss Fairfax, because she is honest. Her manner is a little brusque, but she has a good heart, and we knew each other at school," was her reason given to Mr. Chiverton for desiring Bessie's company. They got on together capitally. Mrs. Chiverton had found her course and object in life already, and was as deeply committed to philanthropic labors and letters as either Lady Latimer or Lady Angleby. They were both numbered amongst her correspondents, and she promised to outvie them in originality and fertility of resource. What she chiefly wanted at Castlemount was a good listener, and Bessie Fairfax, as yet unprovided with a vocation, showed a fine turn that way. She reposed lazily at the end of Mrs. Chiverton's encumbered writing-table, between the fire and the window, and heard her discourse with infinite patience. Bessie was too moderate ever to join the sisterhood of active reformers, but she had no objection to their activity while herself safe from assaults. But when she was invited to sign papers pledging herself to divers serious convictions she demurred. Mrs. Chiverton said she would not urge her. Bessie gracefully acquiesced, and Mrs. Chiverton put in a more enticing plea: "I can scarcely expect to interest you in my occupations all at once, but they bring to me often the most gratifying returns. Read that letter."
Bessie read that letter. "Very honeyed phrases," said she with her odd twist of the mouth, so like her grandfather. It was from a more practised philanthropist than the young lady to whom it was addressed, and was in a strain of fulsome adulation, redolent of gratitude for favors to come. Religious and benevolent egotism is impervious to the tiny sting of sarcasm. Mrs. Chiverton looked complacently lofty, and Bessie had not now to learn how necessary to her was the incense of praise. Once this had provoked her contempt, but now she discerned a certain pathos in it; she had learnt what large opportunity the craving for homage gives to disappointment. "You cannot fail to do some good because you mean well," she said after the perusal of more letters, more papers and reports. "But don't call me heartless and unfeeling because I think that distance lends enchantment to the view of some of your pious and charitable objects."