Bessie's Fortune: A Novel

IN ROME.

The carnival was raging through the streets of Rome, and the Corso was thronged with masqueraders and lined with spectators—Italians, English, and Americans—all eager for the sight. Upon the balcony of a private dwelling, for which an enormous price had been paid because it commanded a fine view of the street below, sat Miss Lucy Grey, with Grey Jerrold and a party of friends. Lucy had been in Rome three or four weeks, staying at a pension, in the Via Nazzionale, which she preferred to the fashionable and noisy hotels.

Grey, who had taken the trip to Egypt, had only been in Rome a few days, and as there was no room for him at the pension, he was stopping at the Quirinal, near by. He had seen the carnival twice before, and cared but little for it; but it was new to his Aunt Lucy, and for her sake he was there, standing at her side and apparently watching the gay pageant as it moved by, though in reality he was scarcely thinking of it at all, for all his thoughts and interest were centered in the white, worn face he had seen that morning in a close, dark room at the hotel, where Bessie McPherson lay dying, he verily believed.

On the night of his arrival at the hotel, which was very full, he had been given a room on the fourth floor looking into a court, and his rest had been disturbed by the murmur of voices in the room adjoining his own.

An Italian voice, which he was sure was a doctor's—a clear, decided, youthful voice, with a slight Irish brogue, which he knew must belong to a young girl, and an older, softer voice, often choked with tears, and occasionally a moaning sound, and wild snatches of song, which affected him strangely, for this voice, broken and weak as it was, had in it something familiar, and he tried in vain to recall where he had heard it before and under what circumstances. Once he thought he heard his own name, as if the sick girl (he felt intuitively that it was a girl) were calling for him, and, starting up, he listened intently, but caught only the tones of the tearful, sobbing voice which said:

"Hush, darling, hush! We are all here; try to be quiet and sleep."

At last, worn out with wakefulness and the fatigue of his long journey from Naples, Grey fell into a deep sleep, from which he did not waken until nearly ten the next morning. Dressing himself hastily he went at once to the office and asked who occupied the room adjoining his own.

"An English lady and her daughter," was the reply; and the clerk, who was not noted for suavity of manner, turned to a little bright-eyed, black haired girl, who came up, evidently with the intention of preferring some request.

There was something in the toss of the curly head, and the saucy look in the eyes, and the slightly upward turn of the nose, which always commanded attention from the rudest of porters and clerks: and this one at the Quirinal bowed respectfully to her, and was about to ask what he could do for her, when Grey interrupted him with another question, or rather assertion and question both:

"The young lady is sick. What is the matter with her?"

A flush of annoyance passed over the clerk's face, as he replied:

"A severe cold, taken in Naples. What can I do for you, Miss Meredith?"

And he loftily bowed Grey aside to make room for the young girl, whose black eyes flashed upon Grey with a half-comical expression, and whose shoulders shrugged involuntarily as she heard the clerk's explanation.

"I will ask the names of the English lady and her daughter another time," Grey thought, as he moved away to make room for the young lady.

He had finished his breakfast, an hour later, and was making his way from the winter garden into the parlor, when he again encountered the young girl with the bright, laughing black eyes.

"Excuse me," she said, flashing upon him a bright, bewildering smile. "I looked on the register, and found that you are Mr. Grey Jerrold, of whom I have heard Sir Jack Trevellian speak. Sir Hal, from whom Sir Jack inherited Trevellian Castle, was my cousin, and I used to live there before poor Hal was killed. I am Flossie Meredith, and live now with my grandmother, at Port Rush, in Ireland."

Grey bowed low to the vivacious little lady, who went on rapidly, gesticulating as she talked, and emphasizing what she said with most expressive shrugs and elevations of her eyelids and nose:

"I heard what that horrid clerk at the bureau told you ailed the young lady in No.——. A severe cold, indeed! I should think it was. It is the typhoid fever of the very worst form, and if you are afraid of it you had better change your room. There are awful big cracks over and under the door. I have stopped them up with paper as well as I can, but the air can get through, and you might take the fever. The gentleman who occupied the room before you came, left it in a hurry when he heard of the fever, but I don't know where he went to escape it, for it's all over the hotel. There is an American girl on the same floor, whom they think is dying this morning, and a young man down stairs, and two or three more somewhere else; and yet the clerks will tell you there is not a single case of fever in the hotel. What liars they are, to be sure! Grandma is frightened almost to death, and burns sugar, and camphor, and brimstone, as disinfectants, and keeps chloride of lime under her bed, till her room smells worse, if possible, than the hotel itself. But I am not afraid. My room adjoins Bessie's, and I am with her half the time."

"What did you say? What did you call the young lady?" Grey asked, excitedly, and Flossie replied:

"Bessie—Bessie McPherson, from Wales. I remember now, you must know her, for Sir Jack told me that he once spent a Christmas at Stoneleigh, and you were there with him."

"Yes, I know her," Grey said, with a tremor in his voice, and a pallor about his lips. "Tell me how long she has been sick, and who is with her."

Then Flossie told him that immediately on her return home from America, Daisy had taken Bessie with her to Switzerland, where they spent the remainder of the summer and a part of the autumn, making their way to Paris in October, and going on to Italy sometime in November; that she, Flossie, had come abroad with her grandmother and had fallen in with the McPhersons at the Italian lakes, and kept with them ever since; that Bessie had not seemed well or happy for some weeks; and that almost immediately after her arrival in Rome she had taken her bed and had been rapidly growing worse until now, when the doctor gave little hope of her recovery.

"She does not know us," Flossie said, "and she talks so piteously of her old home, and wants us to take her back to the garden where the birds are singing in the yews, and where she says there is just one place between her father and the wall, and that is for her. Oh, Mr. Jerrold, what if she should die!"

"She must not—she shall not," Grey answered her, energetically, and by the sense of bitter pain in his heart he knew that Bessie McPherson was more to him than any other girl could ever be, and if she died the world would lose much of its brightness for him.

He had never forgotten her, and over and over again in both his sleeping and waking hours there had arisen before him a vision of her face, as he had seen it when first he went to Stoneleigh, and as he saw it there last, pale and worn and sad, but inexpressibly lovely and sweet. And now, Flossie told him, she was dying, and for a moment he grew cold and faint; then he rallied, and saying, "I will go and see Mrs. McPherson," bade Flossie good-morning, and started for No.——, fourth floor.

His knock was answered by Daisy herself, whose face was very pale, and whose eyes were swollen and red with watching and tears. All her better nature had been aroused; the mother love was in the ascendant now, and in her anxiety for her child she had forgotten much of her coquetry and was almost womanly in her grief.

"You are Mrs. McPherson?" Grey said to her, as she stepped out into the hall and closed the door of the sick-room.

She bowed in the affirmative, and he continued:

"I am Grey Jerrold, I knew your husband; I was with him when he died. I have just heard from Miss Meredith of your daughter's illness, and have come to offer you my services. Is there anything I can do for you?"

Daisy's tears fell like rain as she replied:

"Oh, thank you, Mr. Jerrold; it will be something to know I have a friend, for we are all alone. Neil is in Cairo, and there is no one beside him on whom we have any claim. I have heard Bessie speak of you; only last night she called you by name in her delirium."

"Yes, I heard her," Grey said, explaining that he occupied the adjoining room, and thus had learned that there was some one sick near him.

In an instant Daisy's face brightened as something of her old managing nature asserted itself, and in a few moments she adroitly contrived to let Grey know how very much alone she felt with no male friend to counsel her; how bitterly disappointed she was that the last mail from England did not bring her the expected funds which she so sorely needed; how exorbitant the proprietor of the hotel was in his charges, taking every possible advantage of her helpless condition; and how much she had desired an adjoining room, in order that Bessie might have better air, and those who took care of her more space.

"Not that it matters so very much, except for the air," she added; "for I cannot afford a nurse, so there is one less breath in the room. Oh, Mr. Jerrold, it is dreadful to be sick in Rome, with no friends and very little money. If Neil were here, or my remittances from England would come, it would be all right."

"No nurse," Grey exclaimed. "Have you no nurse for your daughter? Who, then, takes care of her?"

"I do, with Miss Meredith's help. She is very kind, and occasionally one of the servants in the hotel stays with us during the night; but I hear Bessie moving, and I must go. I am so glad that you are here. Good-morning."

It is needless to say that within two hours' time Grey's room was at Daisy's disposal, and the proprietor had orders to charge the same to Mr. Jerrold's account instead of Mrs. McPherson's, while Grey's own luggage was transported to a little, close, eight-by-twelve apartment, which smelled worse than old Mrs. Meredith's could possibly have smelled with all her burnt brimstone and camphor and chloride of lime. The physician, an Italian, was also interviewed, and a competent nurse secured and introduced into the sick-room, and when Daisy protested that she could not meet the expense, Grey said to her:

"Give yourself no uneasiness on that score; that is my business. We cannot let Bessie die."

And then he asked to see her. Very cautiously he entered the room, and with a great throb of pain in his heart stood looking upon the pallid face and the bright blue eyes which met his inquiringly, but had in them no sign of recognition. Taking one of her hands in his and bending over her, Grey said, very softly:

"Do you know me, Bessie?"

There was tenderness and pity in the tone of his voice as he said the name Bessie, and the sick girl looked at him curiously, as if struggling to recall something in the far past; then a smile broke over her face and the lip quivered a little as she replied:

"Yes, you are Neil. I have waited for you, I am so glad you have come."

Still holding the feverish hand which clung to his, Grey hesitated a moment, and then said:

"I am not Neil; he will be here soon. I am Grey Jerrold; don't you remember I spent a Christmas with you once?"

Again she regarded him fixedly a moment, and then she said:

"Yes, I remember Grey Jerrold, the American: he was to have had my room, but said he preferred the cold and the rats! Ugh!" and she shivered a little, as she continued, "Where is he, Neil? He was with me when father died, and was so very kind. Thank him for me, when you see him, and now I am so tired. I cannot talk any more, but stay by me, Neil, and hold my hand I am better with you here."

She persisted in thinking him Neil, and Grey humored the fancy. He had never heard of her engagement, for Jack had not betrayed her confidence; but he knew that she and Neil were greatly attached to each other, and were, as he thought, more like brother and sister than cousins, and, believing as he did with the world in general, that Neil was pledged to Blanche Trevellian, he had no suspicion of the real state of affairs, though he wondered that all Bessie's thoughts should be concentrated upon her absent cousin. How sick she was, and how high the fever ran, and how strangely she talked, as he sat there watching her with a terrible fear in his heart, and a constant prayer for the dear life which seemed balancing so evenly in the scale for the next two or three days, during which he was with her all the time he could spare from his Aunt Lucy, who never suspected why he seemed so abstracted and sad, or that the fever was in the hotel where he was staying. He knew how much afraid she was of it, and how anxious she would be for him if she knew where he spent the hours not given to her. So he did not tell her of poor little Bessie, who grew weaker and weaker every day, until at last the old doctor shook his head, and between the pinches of snuff which he blew about vigorously, said there was one chance in a hundred for her, and if she had any friends who wished to see her, they should be sent for at once. But there was no one save Neil, whom Daisy expected every day, and Grey filled his place altogether with Bessie. She always called him Neil, and once, with a most grieved expression on her face, she said to him:

"Why don't you kiss me, Neil? You have not since you came."

Daisy and Flossie had gone to dinner, and the nurse was resting a few moments in the adjoining room, while Grey sat by her patient; thus he was alone with Bessie, when she startled him with the question, "Why don't you kiss me, Neil?"

Bending over her, he said:

"Would you like me to kiss you Bessie?"

"Ye-es," she answered, faintly, and then Grey pressed his lips to hers in a long, passionate kiss, with no thought that there was danger and possible death in the hot breath which he felt upon his cheek as he laid it against hers.

He thought of nothing but the sick girl before him, whom he had kissed, and whom he now knew that he loved better than anything it life; ay, whom he had loved since the Christmas-time when he first looked into her blue eyes and played for the knot of ribbon she wore at her throat.

Grey had seen much of the world, and many bright eyes had flashed upon him glances which mean so much, but which had never affected him. Nothing, in fact, had touched him until he saw Bessie McPherson, whom he had remembered always, and sometimes to himself he had said:

"I will see her again. I will know her better, and if—"

He never got farther than that "if," though he was conscious that in all his pictures of a future home there was a face like hers as he had seen it in the old stone house at Stoneleigh. He had not sought her again, but he had found her unsought—sick, helpless, dying perhaps, and he knew how much he loved her, and how dark would be the future if she were snatched from him.

"Oh, Heaven, I can't let her die!" he cried; and, falling on his knees by the bedside, he prayed long and earnestly that she might live for him, who loved her so devotedly.

This was the night before the second day of the carnival, when Grey felt obliged to leave her for a few hours and do duty at his Aunt Lucy's side. Miss Grey had that morning heard rumors of fever in Rome, and with her fears aroused she signified to Grey her wish to leave the city the following Monday.

"You are looking very thin," she said, regarding him anxiously as he bent over her chair, "and I am not feeling very well myself. It is time we were out of Rome I am sure it is not healthy here."

She did look pale, Grey noticed, and, as his first duty was to her, he signified his readiness to leave with her on Monday.

"I shall know the worst by that time," he thought "If she is better, I can go with a good heart; if she is dead, it matters little where I am. All places will be the same to me."

And so it was settled that with his Aunt Lucy he should leave for Florence on the following Monday, and with a heavy heart he said good-by to her when the festivities of the day were over, and went back to his hotel.

FAREWELL.

It was Sunday, and the gay pageant of the carnival was moving through the Via Nazzionale, on which the Hotel du Quirinal stands. This was the grandest, gayest day of all, and the spectacle which the long street presented, as carriage after carriage, and company after company pressed on, had in it nothing of the calm, quiet repose which we are wont to associate with Sunday. It was not Sunday to the throng of masqueraders filling the streets, or the multitude of spectators crowding the balconies and windows of the tall houses on either side of the way. But to the little group of friends gathered in the room where Bessie lay it was the holy Sabbath time, and, save when by the opening of some door across the hall a strain of music or shout of merriment was borne to their ears, they would never have guessed what was passing. The fever had burned itself out on Bessie's cheeks and left them colorless as marble; while in her eyes, so large and heavy with restlessness and pain, there was a look of recognition, and on the pale lips a smile for those around her. She had known them all since the early morning, when, awaking from a heavy sleep, she called her mother by name, and asked where she was and what had happened to her.

The last three weeks had been a blank, and they broke it to her gradually, and told her of Grey Jerrold's presence, and how she had mistaken him for Neil, from whom they had that day heard, and who would be with them on Monday. It was Flossie who told Bessie this last, as she kissed the white forehead, and said through her tears:

"I am so glad to see you better; it nearly broke my heart when I thought that you might die—and Mr. Jerrold, too, I am sure would have died if you had. Oh, Bessie, I never saw this Neil, but he can not be as nice as Mr. Jerrold, who, next to Sir Jack, is the best man in the world."

"Hush, Flossie!" Bessie whispered, for she had not strength to speak aloud, "such things are over with me now. I shall never see Sir Jack again; never see Neil, for when he comes to-morrow I shall not be here."

"Oh, Bessie," Flossie cried, with a great gush of tears; but Bessie motioned her to be silent, and went on:

"Tell Sir Jack that I might have loved him had I seen him first, but it will not matter soon whom I have loved, or who has loved me. Tell Neil, when he comes and stands beside me, and I cannot speak to him, that I loved him to the last, and if I had lived I would have been his wife whenever he wished it; but it is better to die, for perhaps I could not have borne the burden and the care again. I am so tired, and the rest beyond the grave looks very sweet to me. You say Mr. Jerrold is here. I should like to see him and thank him for his kindness."

Grey had not been to the room that morning, but he soon came and was admitted to Bessie's presence. Smiling sweetly upon him as he came in, Bessie said:

"I cannot offer you my hand, for I have no power to move it; the life has all gone from me—see," and she tried in vain to lift one of the thin, transparent hands which lay so helplessly just where Flossie had put them.

"Don't try," Grey said, sitting down beside her, and placing one of his own broad, warm palms upon the little hands, as if he would thus communicate to them some of his own strength and vitality. "I am glad to find you better," he continued; but Bessie shook her head and answered him:

"Sane, but not better. I shall never be that; but I want to thank you for all you have done for us—for mother and me. You were with me when father died I remember all you did for me then, and I prayed God to bless you for it many a time; and now, I am going where father has gone, and shall sleep by him in the little yard at home, for they will take me back; mother has promised—I could not rest here in Rome, lovely as the grave-yard is. Flossie told me you were to leave to-morrow, and I wanted to say good-by, and tell you how much good you have done me, though you do not know it. Neil told me once of your resolve to make somebody happy every day, and I have never forgotten it, and have in my poor way tried to do so, too, in imitation of you, but have failed so miserably; while you—oh, Mr. Jerrold, you are so noble and good. You have made so many happy. God bless you, and give you everything which you desire most."

She was too much exhausted to talk any more, and closing her eyes, she lay as if asleep, while Grey watched her with the bitterest pain in his heart he had ever known. Would she die? Must he give her up? Was there yet no brightness, no happiness in the world for her, whose life had been one of sacrifice and toil? He could not think so, and all his soul went out in one continuous prayer: "Don't let Bessie die."

All day she lay motionless as the dead, scarcely lifting even an eyelid, or showing that she was conscious of what was passing around her, save when her mother's low, moaning cry, "Bessie, oh, Bessie, I cannot give you up," sounded through the room. Then she moved uneasily, and said:

"Don't, mother, please; God knows best. He will care for you—and you—you—will keep your promise?"

"Yes, child; so help me God!" Daisy answered, excitedly. "I promised you to be a better woman, and I will; but oh, my Heavenly Father, don't let Bessie die."

It was the echo of Grey's prayer, and Flossie took it up and made it hers, and so the day wore on and the night stole into the quiet room, and it was time for Grey to say good-by, for he was to leave on the early train, and he had yet much to do in settling bills both for himself and Daisy, and providing for her needs in case Neil did not come.

"If I thought he would not be with you to-morrow I would stay, though to do so would greatly disappoint my Aunt Lucy," he said to Daisy, who was unselfish enough to bid him go, though she knew how she should miss him, and fell intuitively that twenty Neils could not fill his place.

"I cannot ask you to stay longer. May God bless you for all you have been to us," she said, as she took his hand at parting, and then turned away with a feeling of utter desolation in her heart.

Only Flossie was with Bessie, who was sleeping quietly, when Grey entered the room to say farewell to the young girl, whose face looked so small and thin, and white as it rested upon the pillows. When her fever was at its height and her heavy hair seemed to trouble her, her physician had commanded it to be cut off.

"It will all come out anyway if she lives," he said, and so the cruel scissors had severed the long, bright tresses which had been Bessie's crowning glory.

But the hair, which had only been cut short, grew rapidly and lay in little curls all over her head making her look more like a child than a girl of nineteen.

Flossie knew it was Grey's farewell, and guessed that he would rather be alone with Bessie, even though she were sleeping. So she arose, and offering him her chair, stole softly out and closed the door behind her.

For a few moments Grey sat gazing intently upon the beautiful face as if he would stamp its image upon his heart, so that whatever came, whether for weal or woe, he should never forget it; and then he prayed fervently, that, if possible, God would give back the life now ebbing so low, and that he yet might win the prize he longed for so ardently.

"Oh, Bessie, poor, little tired Bessie," he whispered, as he gently touched one of the hands near him; "if I might call you mine, might take you to my home across the sea, how happy I would make you. I cannot let you die just as I know how much I love you, and something tells me you will yet be mine. We should all love you so much, my mother, Aunt Lucy, Aunt Hannah, and all."

And then suddenly, as his mind leaped to the future, Grey seemed to see the old farm-house in the rocky pasture-land far away, and Bessie was there with him, sitting just where he had so often sat when a child, on the little bench in the wood-shed close against the wall, beyond which was that hidden grave whose shadow had, in a way, darkened his whole life. And it fell upon him now with an added blackness as he thought:

"Could I take Bessie and not tell her of that grave? I don't know; but God will help me to do right, and all things will seem possible if He gives Bessie to me."

She was breathing a little more heavily now; she might be waking; he must kiss her good-by before she was conscious of the act, and bending over her he kissed her forehead and lips and cheeks, on which his hot tears fell fast.

"Good-by, my darling," he whispered. "In this world you may never know how much I love you, but in the next, perhaps, I may be permitted to tell you how it broke my heart to see you lying so low and to know that I must leave you. Darling Bessie, good-by;" and with another kiss upon her lips he lifted up his head to meet the wondering gaze of the blue eyes, in which for an instant there was a puzzled, startled expression, then they filled with tears, and Bessie's lips quivered as she said:

"Don't, Mr. Jerrold, such words are not for me. I—don't you know?"

She hesitated a moment, and he said:

"I know nothing except that I love you with my whole heart and soul, and whether you live or die you will be the sweetest memory of my life. Don't talk; it is not necessary," he continued rapidly, as he saw her about to speak. "I am not going to trouble you now; you are too weak for that. I am here to say good-by, for I must leave to-morrow; but in the future, when you are well, as something tells me you will be—"

"Oh, Mr. Jerrold, listen," Bessie began, just as the door opened and Flossie came in.

"Time's up," she said, smilingly, as she glanced at Bessie's flushed cheek and Grey's white face, and guessed that something exciting had taken place.

When Jack Trevellian returned from his unsuccessful wooing the previous summer, he had in strict confidence told Flossie why he failed, so that she knew of Bessie's engagement to Neil, but did not feel at liberty to communicate what she knew to Grey, even though she guessed the nature of his feelings for Bessie. And so he was ignorant that he had a rival, and did not in the least suspect the truth, as he once more said farewell and followed Flossie out into the hall.

"Wait a minute, I have something for you," she said to him, and, putting her hand into her pocket, she drew out a piece of soft white paper in which was carefully wrapped one of the curls she had cut from Bessie's head. "I brought this to you, thinking you might like it when you were far away and she was dead," she said, in a choking voice.

"Thank you, Flossie," he said, taking the package from her, "God bless you for all you are to her. Write me at Venice, Hotel New York, and tell me how she is. We shall stay there a day or two before going on to Vienna and Berlin."

He wrung her hands and walked away down the broad flight of stairs, and Flossie saw him no more.

DEAD.

That was what Adolph, a messenger boy from the Quirinal, said to Grey three days later, when the latter accidentally met him in Florence and inquired for the young English girl who was so sick with the fever. Adolph had left the Quirinal for Florence, his home, on the evening of the same day of Grey's departure from Rome. The next afternoon the two met accidentally on one of the bridges which cross the river Arno.

"Dead!" Grey repeated, turning white to his lips and staggering as if he had been smitten with a heavy blow. "How can she be dead? They told me she was better the morning I left. When did she die?"

"A little after twelve," the boy replied, and Grey continued:

"Did her cousin come—a young man from Naples?"

"Yes," the boy answered, "Some gentleman was there—a big swell, who swore awfully at the clerk about the bills; there was no end of a row."

"The bills! What does it mean?" Grey thought, for he had paid them all up to the time of his leaving.

Then, remembering to have heard what exorbitant sums were demanded by the proprietors of hotels when a person died in their house, he concluded that this must be the bill which Neil was disputing so hotly, and bidding good-day to the boy, he walked on across the river, with a feeling that life could never be to him again just what it had been before. On the morning when he left the hotel he had seen the nurse, and inquired after the patient, who, she reported, had slept well and seemed a little better. And now she was dead! the girl he loved so much. Dead, in all her soft beauty, with only the suns of nineteen summers upon her head. Dead in Rome, and he not there with her to take a last look at the fair face which, as he walked rapidly on through street after street, seemed close beside him, sometimes touching his own and making him shiver, it was so cold and dead.

"Dead and gone! Dead and gone!" he kept repeating to himself, as he tried to fancy what was passing in the room where he had spent so many hours and where he had kissed the girl now dead and gone forever.

"If I were only there," he thought. "If I could but kiss her again and hold her hand in mine," and for a moment he felt that he must go back and take the matter away from Neil, who could swear at the expense, however great it was.

He must go back and himself carry Bessie to the old home in Wales and bury her in the nook between the father and the wall—the spot which, when he saw it last, he little dreamed would be her grave, and she so young and fair. But to go back would necessitate his telling his Aunt Lucy of the fever, and to excite in her alarm and anxiety for his safety. So he gave it up, but walked on mile after mile, until the night shades were beginning to fall, and be realized how late it was, and that his aunt must be getting anxious about him. Hailing a carriage, he was driven back to his hotel, and found, as he expected, his aunt alarmed at his protracted absence, and still more alarmed at the whiteness of his face and the strange look in his eyes. He had never told her a word of Bessie, or the fever, and he would not do so now. So he merely said he had walked too far and was tired. He should be all right in the morning, and he asked permission to retire early to his room where he could be alone with his sorrow.

They left Florence the next day, for Miss Grey, who had made a long stop there early in the winter, when on her way to Rome, was anxious to leave Italy as soon as possible, fancying that the climate did not agree with Grey, who had not seemed himself since he came from Egypt and joined her in Rome. Arrived in Venice, Grey's first act was to inquire for letters, but there was nothing from Rome, nothing from Flossie, who had promised him to write. They were too busy with their preparations for taking Bessie home. They must be on their way by this time, he thought, and with a heavy heart he journeyed on from Venice until Vienna was reached, and there, at the Hotel Métropole, he found Jack Trevellian's name registered. It would be a relief to talk to him, Grey thought. He had known Bessie, too; and Grey must speak to some one of the sorrow weighing so heavily upon him, or the burden would break him down.

That night in Jack Trevellian's room two young men sat opposite each other with only a small table between them, and on it a single wax candle, which threw a faint, glimmering light upon the white faces which looked so sadly at each other, as in dumb silence the two sat motionless for a few moments after Grey had told his news.

"What is it, old fellow?" Jack had said, cheerily, as, after expressing his joy and surprise at meeting his friend so unexpectedly, and motioning him to a seat, he noticed the care-worn look upon his face and the set expression upon his mouth. "What makes you look so like a grave-yard? Crossed in love, hey? I thought it would come to that sometime, and knew you would be hard hit when hit at all. Tell me about it, do! Maybe I, too, know how it feels," and Jack laughed a little meaning laugh as he remembered the time when Bessie's blue eyes had looked at him and Bessie's voice had said, "I cannot be your wife."

"Hush, Jack!" and Grey put up his hand deprecatingly. "You don't know how you hurt me. Bessie is dead!"

"Dead! Bessie dead! Oh, Grey!" and Jack nearly leaped from his chair in his first surprise and horror; then he sat down again, and there was silence between the two for a moment, when he said, in a voice Grey would never have known as his: "When did she die? Tell me all about it, please, but tell it very slowly, word by word, or I shall not understand you. I seem to be terribly unstrung, it is so sudden and awful. Bessie dead!" and he stared at Grey with eyes which did not seem to see anything before them, but rather to be looking at something far away in the past.

And Grey, who was regarding him curiously, knew that mere friendship, however strong, never wore such semblance of grief as this, and there flashed upon him the conviction that, like himself, Jack too had loved the beautiful girl now lost forever to them both, while a chill ran through his veins as he thought that possibly Jack was an accepted lover, and that was why Bessie had shrunk from his words of love, as something she must not listen to. She was engaged to Jack Trevellian; nothing could be plainer, and with this conviction, which each moment gathered strength in his mind, he resolved to conceal his own heart-wound from his rival, and talk of the dead girl as if he had only been her friend. Slowly, as Jack had bidden him, he told the story of her sickness, dwelling long on Flossie Meredith's untiring devotion, but saying nothing of the services he had rendered, saying only that he was so glad he was there, as a gentleman friend was necessary at such a time and in such a place, where greed is the rule and not the exception.

"They were expecting Neil from Naples the day I left, or I should have staid," he said, and then into Jack's eyes there crept a strange, hard expression, and he wiped the perspiration from his forehead and lips, as he said:

"Neil; yes. It was his place, not yours, or mine, but, oh, Grey, if I might have seen her; if I could have held her dead hand but for a moment and kissed her dear face—"

Here Jack stopped, for his voice was choked with sobs, and ere he knew what he was doing, Grey said to him:

"Jack, you loved Bessie McPherson!"

"Yes," Jack answered him, unhesitatingly. "I do not mind telling it to you. I think I have loved her since I first saw her, a demure, old-fashioned little thing, in the funniest bonnet and dress you ever saw, sitting with her father, in Hyde Park, and looking at the passers-by. I watched her for some time, wondering who she was, and then, at last, I ventured to speak to her, and standing by her chair told her who the people were, and found out who she was, and called upon her in Abingdon Road, and then she went away, but her face haunted me continually, and even the remembrance of it and of her helped me to a better life than I had lead before. You knew her mother, or rather you knew of her. Not the woman whom you saw in Rome, full of anxiety for her child, but a vain, selfish, intriguing woman, whom no good man could respect, much as he might admire her dazzling beauty. Well, she had me on her string, when I met her daughter, but something Bessie said to me made me strong to resist coils and arts which Satan himself would find it hard to withstand. I used to ride with her, and flirt with her, and bet with her, and play at her side in Monte Carlo, and let her fleece me out of money, just as she did every one with whom she came in contact; but after I knew Bessie, I broke with her mother entirely, and have never played with her or any one since for money. You remember the Christmas we spent together at Stoneleigh. You did not guess, perhaps, how much I loved her then, or that I would have asked her to be my wife if I had not been so poor. Then her father died, and you were there before me, and I was horribly jealous, for I meant she should be mine. There was nothing in the way, I thought. Poor Hal was dead, and had left me his title and estate. I could pour some brightness into her weary life, and two weeks after the funeral I went again to Stoneleigh and asked her to marry me."

Jack paused a moment, and leaning forward eagerly, Grey said:

"Yes, you asked her to marry you, and she consented?"

"No; oh, no" Jack groaned, "If she had, she might not now have been dead; my Bessie, whom I loved so much. She refused me, and worst of all, she told me she was plighted to Neil, her cousin."

"To Neil! Bessie plighted to Neil! That is impossible, for he is to marry Blanche Trevellian, so everybody says," Grey exclaimed, conscious of a keener pang than he had experienced when he thought Jack his rival.

"And everybody is right," Jack replied: "he will marry Blanche, but he was engaged to Bessie under the promise of strictest secrecy until his mother, who had threatened to disinherit him, was reconciled, or he found something which would support him without any effort on his part, Neil McPherson would never exert himself, or deny himself either, even for the woman he loved, and, Grey, I speak the truth when I tell you that I would rather know that Bessie was dead than to see her Neil's wife."

Grey did not answer, but something in the pallor of his face and the expression of his eyes, struck Jack suddenly, and stretching his hand across the table he said, very low and very sadly:

"Jerrold, you loved her, too. I see it in your face."

"Yes," Grey answered him, "I loved her, too, and would have given years of my life to have saved her, though not for Neil. Better far as it is—better for her, I mean, though our lives are wrecked; at least, mine is; but for you there may still be a happy future, and on the ashes of the dead love a new one may arise to bless you."

"Never!" Jack answered, emphatically; then after a moment, as if his thoughts had followed Grey's, he asked:

"Do you know how long Mrs. Meredith intends remaining in Rome, or where she expects to go after leaving there?"

Grey replied that he did not, while a faint smile played round his mouth, as he looked at his friend, who detected the smile, and comprehending its meaning, said, with a heightened color:

"I know you are thinking of Flossie. Bessie thought of her, too, and asked why I did not marry her. But that will never be, though, she is as bright and beautiful an Irish lassie as ever gladdened the eyes of man and the castle is so lonesome without her buzzing about and stirring up things generally, that I have serious thoughts of inviting her grandmother, to take up her abode there, so I can have Flossie back. The servants adore her. But she will never be my wife. She would tire and worry me to death with her restlessness and activity. When I lost Bessie I lost everything, and have nothing left but her memory—not even a flower which she has worn."

Grey hesitated a moment, then taking from his pocket the package which Flossie had given him, he opened it, and holding to view the long silken curl, said to Jack:

"Flossie cut this from Bessie's head when the fever was at its height, and though there is not in the world gold enough to buy it from me, I will divide with you," and parting it carefully he laid one-half of it upon Jack's hand, around which it seemed to cling with a loving tenacity. It was strange how vividly that wavy hair brought Bessie back to the young men who had loved her so much, and who, at sight of it, broke down entirely, and laying their heads upon the table, cried for a moment, as only strong men can cry, for the dear little girl who, they felt sure, was lying in her grave in far off Stoneleigh.

POOR DAISY.

Four weeks passed away, and Grey, with his Aunt Lucy, was journeying through Russia, bearing with him a sense of loss and pain. The mails were very irregular, and he had never heard a word either from Flossie or Neil, nor had he written to them. He could not yet bring himself to speak of Bessie, even upon paper, though he sometimes felt a little aggrieved that Neil did not write to him and tell him of his loss. And so the weeks went on, and one day, toward the middle of April, when the English skies were at their best and the hyacinths and crocuses were blooming in the yew-shaded garden at Stoneleigh, a little band of mourners went down the broad graveled walk to the inclosure, where in the narrow space between Archie's grave and the wall another grave was made, and there in silence and in tears they buried—not Bessie—but her mother, poor, weak, frivolous Daisy, who had succumbed to the fever and died after a three weeks' illness.

Bessie was not dead, as the messenger boy had reported to Grey in Florence, but the young girl from America, sick on the same floor, had died about noon on the day of Grey's departure, and with his rather limited knowledge of English the boy had mistaken her for Bessie. And as her brother had arrived that morning and had sworn roundly at the frightful bill presented to him, the boy had naturally confounded this party with the one for whom Grey inquired, and thus had been the cause of much needless pain and sorrow to both Jack Trevellian and Grey. Neil had come from Naples on the morning train, very tired and worn with his trip to Egypt, and a good deal out of sorts because of a letter received from his mother in Naples in which she rated him soundly for his extravagance, telling him he must economize, and that the check she sent him—a very small one—must suffice until his return to England, where she confidently expected him to marry Cousin Blanche before the season was over.

"I hear," she wrote in conclusion, "that the widow of Archibald McPherson is in Rome with her daughter, but I trust you will not allow them to entangle you in any way. The mother will fleece you out of every farthing you have, while the daughter—well I do not know her, so will not say what she may do; only keep clear of them both and shun that crafty woman as you would the plague."

With this letter in his pocket and barely enough money to defray his own expenses for a few weeks longer, it is not to be wondered at, if Neil was not in a very jubilant state of mind when he reached the Quirinal, and found matters as they were—Bessie very low with the fever, of which he had a mortal terror and her mother destitute of funds except as Grey Jerrold had supplied them, or as she had borrowed from Mrs. Meredith, to whom she owed twenty pounds, with no possible means of paying. All this and more, she tearfully explained to Neil, who listened to her with a great sinking at his heart and a feeling that he had plunged into something dreadful, from which he could not escape. There was manliness enough in his nature to make him wince a little, when he heard what Grey had done, while at the same time he was conscious of a pang of jealousy as he reflected that only a stronger sentiment than mere friendship for Bessie could have actuated Grey, generous and noble as he knew him to be.

"Oh, if I were rich," he sighed, as with a conviction that he was about the most abused person in the world, he went into the room where Bessie lay, white, and worn, and motionless almost as the dead, for though the fever had left her she was very weak, and could only whisper her welcome, while the great tears rolled down her cheeks.

Neil was awfully afraid of her. There might still be infection in her breath and infection in the room. He fancied he smelled it, and involuntarily put his hands to his mouth and nose, as he drew near the bed. Bessie saw the motion, and interpreted it aright.

"Oh, Neil," she said, with a sob, "you are not afraid of me?"

"No, certainly not; only this fever is a confounded thing when it takes hold of a great hulking fellow like myself, and just now I am very tired," he said; then, heartily ashamed of himself as he saw the look of distress on Bessie's face, he bent and kissed her forehead, and told her how sorry he was to find her so sick, and that he would not leave her till she was strong again.

But all the time he talked he fidgeted in his chair, and kept looking at the door as if anxious to escape into the fresher air.

"Do you think there is any danger?" he said to Flossie, whom he encountered in the adjoining room.

Flossie knew he was afraid, and there was mischief in the merry Irish lassie's heart, as she replied:

"Danger, oh, no, if she is kept quiet and carefully nursed, the doctor says she will soon get well enough to be moved."

"Yes, I know that, of course," Neil stammered. "I mean, is there any danger of my taking it from her—from the room—from the air, you know?

"Are you afraid of it?" Flossie asked him, very demurely, and he replied:

"N—no; yes—I believe I am. Does that make any difference?"

"I should say it did, very decidedly," Flossie answered, with great earnestness and evident concern. "Mr. Jerrold was not one bit afraid, and he was in there all the time;" this, with a saucy twinkle in her black eyes, as she saw the flush in Neil's face and guessed its cause. "You did not kiss her, of course?" she continued, with the utmost gravity.

"Yes, I did," he answered promptly. "Do you think—do you think—"

"Yes I do," she said, decidedly, adding to herself: "I think you are a fool!" To him she continued: "I'll tell you what to do. Grandma is afraid, like you, so I know all the preventives. Let me burn a match or two under your nose so that the fumes will saturate your face; that will counteract any bad effects from the kiss, and to prevent contagion hereafter, get a good sized leek. You can find one at any grocer's: put it in a bit of cloth, with a piece of camphor-gum, and wear it over the pit of your stomach. You may even brave the small-pox with that about your person."

"But won't it smell awfully?" Neil asked, with a shudder, as he thought of wearing about his person an obnoxious leek, whose odor he abominated.

"It will smell some, but what of that? You can endure a great deal in order to feel safe," Flossie replied.

Neil could endure a great deal where his personal safety was concerned, and wholly deceived by Flossie's manner, he submitted to the burnt matches, which nearly strangled him, and brought on so violent a fit of coughing as made him fear lest he should burst a blood-vessel.

"I guess you are all right as far as the kiss is concerned," Flossie said, nearly bursting with merriment. "And now for the leek and camphor. I'll fix it for you."

He found the leek and the camphor and Flossie tied them up for him in a bit of linen and bade him be quite easy in his mind, as with these disinfectants he was impervious to the plague itself.

"What a coward he is, to be sure!" she said, as she watched him hurrying down the hall to his room with his disinfectants. "Sir Jack told me he was a milksop and not half worthy of Bessie, and he was right. I think him an idiot. Leeks, indeed! Won't he smell, though, when the leek gets warmed through and begins to fume! Phew!" and the little nose went up higher than its wont as Flossie returned to the sick-room.

That night Neil wrote to his mother the exact condition of affairs, telling her how he had found his aunt and cousin, whom he could not leave without being stigmatized as a brute; telling her what Grey had done for them; telling her that they owed old Mrs. Meredith twenty pounds, and that unless she wished a subscription paper to be started for them in the hotel, among the English, many of whom were her acquaintances, she must send money to relieve their necessities, and pay their bills. Neil felt almost sure that this last would touch his mother, when nothing else could reach her, and he was right. Neither she nor her husband cared to have their friends contribute to the needs of any one who bore their name, and the letter which Lady Jane sent to her son contained sixty pounds, which she bade him use to the best possible advantage, adding that he was to leave Rome as soon as he could, with any show of decency. This, Neil would gladly have done if he could, but when his mother's letter arrived it found him plunged into a complication of difficulties from which he could not extricate himself. Daisy had suddenly been stricken down with the fever, which developed so rapidly and assumed so violent a form that Neil's strength, and courage, and patience were taxed to the utmost, and he might have succumbed entirely, if it had not been for Flossie, who was equal to any emergency, and who resisted all her grandmother's efforts to get her out of the fever-hole, as she designated the hotel.

Flossie would not go so long as Bessie needed her. She was not afraid, she said, and every morning her eyes were just as saucy and mirthful, and the roses on her cheek just as bright, as if she had not been up half the night, soothing the wildly delirious Daisy, and encouraging Neil, who, as the days went by, rose a little in her estimation. He threw the obnoxious leek from his window, when, as Flossie had predicted, its fumes became intolerable, and he gave up the large, sunny room which he had occupied at first, and took a smaller, less expensive one, and he learned to deny himself many things before that terrible fever had burned itself out. He gave up table d'hote and lunch, and took to the restaurants outside. He gave up driving on the Pincian Hill, or having carriages at all, and patronized the street-cars and omnibuses when he went out for an airing, as Flossie insisted that he should do each day.

"I do believe I could make something of him in time," the energetic little lady thought. "But, dear me! Bessie would humor all his fancies, and be a perfect slave to his caprices; even now she will not let him wait upon her much, for fear of tiring him."

And so the days went on until two weeks were gone, and then one April morning it was whispered among the few guests remaining in the hotel, that death was again in the house, and more trunks were packed in haste, and more people left, until the fourth floor was almost as silent as the room in which Daisy lay dead, with a strange beauty in her face, to which had returned, as it sometimes does, all the freshness and loveliness of youth, so that she looked like some fair young girl as she lay upon her pillow, with her hands upon her bosom, just as she had folded them, when at the last she said to those around her:

"It is growing late. I think I will retire; good-night;" then, clasping her hands together, she began the prayer of her childhood: "Now I lay me down to sleep," repeating the whole distinctly, while, with the words, "I pray thee, Lord, my soul to take," she went to meet the God who is so pitiful and kind, and who knew all the good that was in her, and knew, too, what thoughts of remorse for the past and prayers for forgiveness had been in her heart during the few lucid intervals which had been given to her. She had been delirious most of the time, and in her delirium had talked of things which made poor Bessie shudder, they revealed to her so much more of her mother's past than she had ever known.

Monte Carlo was the field to which her fancy oftenest took flight, and there, at the gaming-table she sat again, going through the excitement of the olden time, losing and winning—winning and losing—sometimes with Teddy at her side, and sometimes with men of a baser, lower type, with whom she bandied jests, until the scene was too horrible even for the iron-nerved Flossie to endure. Then, there were moments of perfect consciousness, when she knew and spoke rationally to those about her, and tried to comfort Bessie, who insisted upon having a lounge taken into the room so that she might see her mother, if she could not minister to her.

Once, startled by the expression of the faces around her, Daisy said:

"Why do you all look so sorry? Am I very sick? Am I going to die? Oh, am I going to die? I cannot die. I cannot! Don't let me die! Don't; don't."

It was like the cry of a frightened child begging a reprieve from punishment, and that piteous "Don't! don't!" rang in Bessie's ears long after the lips which uttered the words were silent in death.

During their journeyings together, Daisy had shown the best there was in her and had really seemed trying to reform. When, on her return from America, she had suggested that they go abroad, saying she would sell her diamonds to defray the expenses, Bessie had refused at first, and had only consented on condition that her mother abandoned all her old habits of life, and neither played nor bet, nor practiced any of her wiles upon the opposite sex for the purpose of extorting money from them. And all this Daisy promised.

"I'll be as circumspect as a Methodist parson's wife," she said; and she kept her word as well as it was possible for her to do.

She neither played, nor bet, nor coaxed money from her acquaintances by pretty tales of poverty, and if she sometimes bandied familiar jests with her gentlemen friends, Bessie did not know it, and there was springing up in her heart a strong feeling of respect for her mother who, just as the new life was beginning, was to be taken from her.

"Oh, mamma," she sobbed, putting her poor, pale, face close to that of the dying woman, for Neil had taken her in his arms and laid her beside her mother "oh, mamma, how can I give you up." Then, as the greater fear for her mother's future overmastered every other feeling, she said: "Speak to me, mother; tell me you are not afraid; tell me you are sorry; tell me, oh, my Heavenly Father, if mother must die, forgive her all the past and take her to Thyself."

"Yes," Daisy murmured, moving a little uneasily, "Forgive me all the past—and there is so much to forgive. I am sorry, and most of all for Archie and Bessie, whom I neglected so long. Oh, how pleasant the old home at Stoneleigh looks to me now. Bury me by Archie in the grass, it is so quiet there; and now it is getting late. I think I will retire. Good-night!"

And then, folding her hands together, she said the "Now I lay me," and Flossie, who was bending over her, knew that she was dead, and motioning to Neil, bade him take Bessie away.

Neil was very tender and very kind and loving to the poor little girl quivering with pain, but uttering no sound and shedding no tear as she lay passive in his arms, but he felt that he was badly abused, and that the burden laid upon him was heavier than he could bear. Could he have had his way, Daisy would have been buried in the Protestant cemetery, in Rome. This would have been far less expensive and have saved him no end of trouble. But when he suggested it to Bessie, she said "No" so decidedly that he gave it up and nerved himself to meet what he never could have met but for Flossie, who, as far as she could, managed everything, even to battling fiercely with the proprietor, whose bill she compelled him to lessen by several hundred francs, and when he demanded payment for four dozen towels which he said had been ruined, she insisted upon taking the towels, which she said were hers, if she paid for them. Never had portier or clerk encountered such a tempest as she proved to be, and they finally surrendered the field and let her have her own way, shrugging their shoulders significantly, as they called her "la petite diable Irelandaise."

It was old Mrs. Meredith who furnished the necessary funds, for there was no time to send to England. Neil telegraphed to his father, asking him to go down to Stoneleigh and meet them on their arrival with the body. But the Hon. John was suffering with the gout, and only Anthony and Dorothy were there, when Neil and Flossie and Bessie came, the latter utterly exhausted and unable to sit up a moment after entering the house. So they took her to her old room, which Dorothy had made as comfortable and pleasant as she could; and there Bessie lay, weak as a little child, while the kind neighbors came again and stood in the yew-shaded cemetery where Daisy was buried and where there was room for no more of the McPhersons.

"Now what?" Flossie said to Neil, when the burial was over and they sat alone in the parlor; "now what are you going to do?" and when he answered, gloomily, "I am sure I don't know," she flashed her black eyes upon him and replied: "You don't know? Then let me tell you; marry Bessie at once. What else can you do? Surely you will not leave her here alone?"

"I know I ought not to leave her here," Neil said, despondingly. "But I cannot marry her now."

"Why not?" Flossie asked him sharply, and he replied:

"I cannot marry her and starve, as we surely should do. I have no means of my own, and mother would turn me from her door if I brought her Bessie as my wife. As it is, I dread going to her with all these heavy bills. It was a foolish thing to bring Mrs. McPherson home, and I said so at the time. That woman has been a curse to every one with whom she ever came in contact."

"Oh, mamma, poor mamma, I wish I, too, were dead, as you are," moaned, or rather gasped a little white-faced girl who was standing just outside the door, and had heard all Neil was saying.

Bessie had remained upstairs as long as she could endure it, and when she heard voices in the parlor and knew that Neil and Flossie were there, she arose, and, putting on a dressing-gown and shawl, crept down stairs to go to them. But Flossie's question arrested her steps, and leaning against the side of the door, she heard all their conversation, and knew the bitterness there was in Neil's heart toward her mother, less by what he said, than by the tone of his voice as he said it, for there was in it a cold, hard ring which made her shiver and sent her back to the bed she had quitted, where she lay for hours, until she had thought it out and knew what she meant to do. But she said nothing of her decision either to Neil or Flossie, the latter of whom left her the next day to join her grandmother, in London.

Neil waited a few days longer, loath to leave Bessie and dreading to go home and meet what he knew he must meet when he told his mother the amount of her indebtedness to Mrs. Meredith, who had signified her wish to be paid as soon as possible.

Naturally dull of perception as he was, Neil was vaguely conscious of a change in Bessie's manner, but he attributed it to grief for the loss of her mother, wondering a little that she could mourn so deeply, a death, which, to him, seemed a relief, for Daisy was not a person whom he would care to acknowledge as his mother-in-law.

Bessie could not forget the words she had overheard, and though they might be true, she knew Neil ought not to have spoken them to a comparative stranger, and she began to realize, as she never had before, that in Neil's nature there was much which did not accord with hers. Many and many a time thoughts of Grey Jerrold filled her mind, and in her half-waking hours at night, she heard again his voice, so full of sympathy, and felt an inexpressible longing to see him again, and hear him speak to her. Still, she meant to be loyal to Neil, and on the morning of his departure, when he was deploring his inability to marry her at once, she lifted her sad eyes to him and said:

"Is there nothing you can do to help yourself? I will do my part gladly, and it cannot cost us much to live—just us two."

The next moment her face was crimson, as she reflected that what she had said, seemed like begging Neil to marry her, and his answer was not very reassuring.

"There is nothing for me to do; absolutely nothing."

"Don't other men find employment if they want it?" Bessie asked, and he replied:

"Yes, if they want it; but I do not. You know as well as I the prejudice among people of my rank against clerkships, and trade, and the like. As a rule the McPhersons do not work."

"But I am not ashamed to work, and I am as much a McPherson as you," Bessie answered him, emboldened for once to say what she thought.

"Yes," he answered, slowly, "and I am sorry for it. You told me at one time you thought of going out as governess. Never harbor that idea again, if you care for me. I cannot have people pointing out my wife as one who had taught their children."

Bessie bowed her head silently as if in acquiescence, and Neil never suspected what was passing in her mind, nor dreamed that a tide was set in motion which would take Bessie away from him forever.

BESSIE'S DECISION.

"And so you have determined to go to America?" Neil said to Bessie about four weeks later, when he came to Stoneleigh in obedience to a letter from Bessie telling him she wished to see him on a matter of importance.

"Yes," she replied, "I am going to America. My passage is engaged, and I sail in two weeks, in company with a Mrs. Goodnough, of Bangor, a nice old lady, who will take good care of me."

"Well," and Neil stroked his mustache thoughtfully, "I am not sure but that it is a good idea to beard the old woman in her den. You will be likely to succeed where others would fail, and when you are sure of her fortune send for me."

There was a levity in his manner which Bessie resented, and she said to him, quickly:

"If by the 'old woman' you mean my Aunt Betsey, I would rather you did not speak of her thus. She has been kind to father and me—very kind. But it is not her fortune I am going after. It is my own! I have always thought I had one somewhere, and as it does not seem to be here, it may be in America. But, jesting aside. I am going to find something to do. It is no disgrace to work there, and your friends will never know."

"I am not sure of that," Neil said. "But what do you mean to do?"

"Anything I can find," Bessie answered, decidedly.

Neil only smiled and thought how sure it was that once with her aunt she would become a favorite, and eventually, an heiress to the fortune he so greatly coveted.

He should miss her, he knew, and still it would be a relief not to have her on his mind, as she would be, if left alone at Stoneleigh. So, on the whole, she had done wisely when she planned to go to America, and he did not oppose her, but said he would be in Liverpool the 25th, to see her off. He did not ask if she had the necessary funds for the voyage; he had trouble enough on that score, and was not likely soon to forget the scene, or rather succession of scenes, enacted at Trevellian House, when Mrs. Meredith's bills were presented to his mother, who, but for shame's sake, would have repudiated them at once as something she was not lawfully obliged to pay.

Neither did he inquire who Mrs. Goodnough was, and did not know that she was a poor woman who had worked in the fields, and was going out to New York, not as first-class passenger nor even second, but as steerage, and Bessie's ticket was of the same nature. She had but little money, and when she heard from Mrs. Goodnough, who was a friend of Dorothy's, and who had once been in America, that a steerage passage was oftentimes very comfortable, and that many respectable people took it because of its cheapness, she put aside all feelings of pride, and said to Mrs. Goodnough:

"I will go steerage with you," and from this plan she never swerved.

But she would not tell Neil then; time enough at the last when he came to see her off, and must, of course, know the truth.

She knew he would be very angry, and probably insist upon paying the difference, but she could take no more money from him, and her blood was hot whenever she reflected what she had heard him say to Flossie of the bills incurred in Rome, and which she meant to pay to the uttermost farthing, if her life was spared and she found something to do in the new world, where to work was not degrading. But she must know the amount, and she timidly asked Neil to tell her how much it was.

"Enough! I assure you. Those Italians are rascals and cheats—the whole of them; but it need not trouble you, the debt is paid," he said, a little bitterly. But Bessie insisted upon knowing, and finally wrung from him that two hundred and fifty pounds would probably cover the whole indebtedness.

"Bringing mother home and all?" Bessie asked, and he replied:

"Yes, bringing her home and all; that was a useless expense."

He spoke before he thought, and when he saw how quickly the tears came to Bessie's eyes, he repented the act, and stooping down to kiss her, said:

"Forgive me, Bessie, I did not mean to wound you; but mother did fret so about the bills. You know she did not like your mother."

"Tell her I shall pay them all," Bessie answered, as she withdrew herself from the arm he had thrown round her. "My mother was my own, and with all her faults I loved her, and I believe she was a good woman at the last. I should die if I did not."

"Yes, oh yes, of course," Neil said, feeling very awkward and uncertain what to say next.

At last he asked, rather abruptly, if Bessie knew where Jack Trevellian and Grey Jerrold were, saying he had never heard from either of them since he was in Rome.

Bessie replied that Flossie had written that Sir Jack was somewhere in the Bavarian Alps leading a kind of Bohemian life, and that he had written to his steward at Trevellian Castle that he should not be home until he had seen the Passion Play, then in process of presentation at Oberammergau.

"He never writes Flossie," Bessie said; "neither does she know where Mr. Jerrold is. She wrote to him at Venice, but he did net answer her letter. Perhaps he has gone home."

Neil said it was possible, adding, that she would probably see him in America, as his Aunt Lucy lived in Allington.

"But you are not to fall in love with him," he continued, laughingly. "You are mine, and I shall come to claim you as soon as you write me you have found that fortune you are going after. Do your best, little Bess, and if you cannot untie the old maid's purse strings nobody can."

Bessie made no reply, but in her heart there was a feeling which boded no good to Neil, who left her the next day, promising to come down to Liverpool and see her off.