The news about Buller troubled him no little, to judge by his countenance, but he did not say much beyond an exclamation that they would carry the contest through, let it cost what it might. "We have been looking forward to this contest ever since Bradley was returned five years ago; we will not be so faint-hearted as to yield without a battle. If we are defeated again, we may count Norminster lost to the Conservative interest."
"Oh, don't talk of defeat! We shall be far more likely to win if we refuse to contemplate the possibility of defeat," cried Bessie with girlish vivacity.
Mr. Cecil Burleigh laughed and said, "Miss Fairfax is right. She will wear my colors and I will adopt her logic, and, ostrich-like, refuse to see the perils that threaten me."
"No, no," remonstrated Bessie casting off her shy reserve under encouragement. "So far from hiding your face, you must make it familiar in every street in Norminster. You must seek if you would find, and ask if you would have. I would. I should hate to be beaten by my own neglect, worse than by my rival."
Mr. Fairfax was electrified at this brusque assertion of her sentiments by his granddaughter. Her audacity seemed at least equal to her shyness. "Very good advice, Elizabeth; make him follow it," said he dryly.
"We will give him no rest when we have him at Brentwood," added Miss Burleigh. "But though he is so cool about it, I believe he is dreadfully in earnest. Are you not, Cecil?"
"I will not be beaten by my own neglect," was his rejoinder, with a glance at Bessie, blushing beautifully.
They did not relapse into constraint any more that day. There was no addition to the company at dinner, and the evening being genially warm, they enjoyed it in the garden. Mr. Cecil Burleigh and Miss Fairfax even strolled as far as the ruins in the park, and on the way he enlightened her respecting some of his opinions, tastes, and prejudices. She heard him attentively, and found him very instructive. His clever conversation was a compliment to which, as a bright girl, she was not insensible. His sister had detailed to him her behavior on her introduction to Lady Angleby, and had deplored her lively sense of the ridiculous. Miss Burleigh had the art of taming that her brother credited her with, and Elizabeth was already at ease and happy with her--free to be herself, as she felt, and not always on guard and measuring her words; and the more of her character that she revealed, the better Miss Burleigh liked her. Her gayety of temper was very attractive when it was kept within due bounds, and she had a most sweet docility of tractableness when approached with caution. At the close of the evening she retired to her white parlor with a rather exalted feeling of responsibility, having promised, at Mr. Cecil Burleigh's instigation, to study certain essays of Lord Bacon on government and seditions in states for the informing of her mind. She took the volume down from Dorothy Fairfax's bookshelf, and laid it on her table for a reminder. Miss Burleigh saw it there in the morning.