When Bessie knew that the money was really theirs, when she had it in her hand and counted the bank-notes, her happiness knew no bounds, and she felt richer than Blanche Trevellian ever had with fifty times that sum. To her that hundred pounds represented so much actual good and comfort for her father, for whom she would use nearly all of it. But first she must pay Jack Trevellian, and she said to her father:

"May I have ten pounds of this to do with as I like? I promise to make good use of it."

"Yes, child," he answered, "it is all yours to do with as you please."

So she sent ten pounds to Jack, and wrote:

This done, Bessie paid the butcher and the baker and the grocer, and a part of what they were owing Anthony and Dorothy, and bought herself a pair of shoes, and then religiously put by what was left to buy the medicines and dainties, the beef tea and wine and jellies and fruit, which were to nurse her father back to health physically and mentally. But it would take more than fruit or jelly to repair a constitution never strong and now greatly weakened by disease. Every day Archie grew weaker, while Bessie watched over and tended him with anguish in her heart and a terrible shrinking from the future when he would be gone forever. From Neil she heard often, but his letters did not do her much good they were so full of regret for the poverty which was keeping her from him and would keep her indefinitely for aught he knew. From her mother she seldom heard. That frivolous butterfly was too busy and gay to give much time or thought to her dying husband and overburdened child. She was still at Nice and still devoted to her American friends, the Rossiter-Brownes, as they called themselves, to the great amusement of their neighbors, who had known them when they were plain Mr. and Mrs. Isaac R. Brown, of Massachusetts, or, as they were familiarly called, Miss Brown and Ike. But they were rich people now; a turn in the wheel had made Ike a millionaire and transformed him into Mr. Rossiter-Browne, and with his wife and his two children, Augusta and Allen, he was doing Europe on a grand scale, and Mrs. Rossiter-Browne, an ambitious but well-meaning woman, had taken a violent fancy to Daisy, and had even invited her to go home with her in June, offering to defray all her expenses out and back if she would do so.

"And I half made up my mind to go," Daisy wrote to Bessie in May. "I have often wished to see America, and shall never have a better chance than this. Though not the most refined people in the world, the Rossiter-Brownes are very nice and very kind to me. Lady June, I dare say, would call them vulgar and second-class, and I am inclined to think they are what their own countrymen call shoddy. They have not always been rich as they are now. Indeed, Mrs. Rossiter-Browne makes no secret of the fact that she was once poor and did her own washing, which is very commendable in her, I am sure. By some means or other—either oil, or pork, or the war—they have made a fortune and have come abroad to spend it in a most princely manner. Mrs. Rossiter-Browne is good-looking, and wears the finest diamonds at Nice, if I except some of the Russian ladies, but her grammar is dreadful, her style of dress very conspicuous, and her voice loud and coarse. Augusta, the daughter, is twenty, and much better educated than her mother. She is rather pretty and stylish, but indolent and proud. Allen, the son, is twenty-two, tall, light-haired, good-natured, and dandified, kisses his mother night and morning, calls her ma and his father pa, and his sister sis; drives fast horses, wears an eye-glass, carries a cane, and affects the English drawl. Pere Rossiter-Browne is a little dapper man, with a face like a squirrel. At breakfast, which is served in their parlor, he eats with his knife, and pours his tea into his saucer in spite of Augusta's disgust and his wife's open protestations.

"'Now, Angeline, you shet up with your folderol,' he will say, with the most imperturbable good humor. 'At table dote I can behave with the best of 'em, but in my own room I'm goin' to be comfortable and take things easy like, and if I want to cool my tea in my sasser I shall. Miss McPherson don't think no less of me for that, you bet.'

"They have given me a standing invitation to breakfast with them when I like.

"'It don't cost no more for five than for four,' Mr. Rossiter-Browne says, and as juicy beefsteaks and mutton chops and real cream have a better relish than rolls and tea, I accept their hospitality in this as in many other things.

"They take me everywhere, and I am really quite useful to them in various ways. None of them speak French at all except Augusta, and she very badly. But she is improving rapidly, for I hear her read both French and Italian every day, and help her with her pronunciation. Then I have introduced them to a great many people, among whom are some English lords and ladies and German barons and baronesses; and, as all Americans dote on titles, notwithstanding their boasted democracy, so Mrs. Rossiter-Browne is not an exception, but almost bursts with dignity when she speaks to her Yankee friends of what Lady So-and-so said to her and what she said to Baron Blank. She nearly fell on her face when I introduced her to Lord Hardy, who has returned from Egypt and was here for a few days. He took to her wonderfully, or pretended that he did, and she was weak enough to think he had an eye to Augusta's charms, and asked if I supposed him serious in his attentions to her daughter, and what kind of a husband he would make. What an absurd idea! Lord Hardy and Augusta Browne! I laughed till I cried when I told Ted about it and asked him what he thought of it.

"'I might do worse,' he said, and then walked away, and that afternoon took Mrs. Browne and Augusta over to Villefranche.

"Ted is very much changed from the boy whom I smuggled into the play-room at Monte Carlo as my Cousin Susan, and I can't get him near there now. It seems that he lost a great deal of money one night, and actually left the Casino with the intention to kill himself. But he had not the courage to do it, though he told me he put the muzzle of the pistol to his forehead, when a thought of his mother stayed his hand and the suicide was prevented. She was in heaven, he said, and he wanted to see her again. If he killed himself he knew he should not, and so he concluded to live, but made a vow never to play again, and he has kept it and become almost as big a spoony as Jack Trevellian. By the way, I saw Trevellian the other day, and when I said something about hoping to pay him his ten pounds soon, he told me you had paid it. Very kind in you, I am sure, but I don't see where you got the money. You might have kept it, as he would never have pressed me for it, and I could not pay it if he did. My rooms cost me so much that I never have a shilling to spare, and I do not go to Monte Carlo often, for these Rossiter-Brownes profess to be very religious people—Baptists, I believe—and hold gambling in great abhorrence, so, as I wish to stand well with them I have to play on the sly, or not at all. They have a house in New York and another in the country somewhere, and a cottage at the sea-side; and they have a maid and a courier, and Mrs. Rossiter-Browne talks as familiarly with both of them as she does with me, and I think feels more at ease in their society than in mine. But she is a good woman, and since commencing this letter I have decided to accept her invitation and accompany her to America. They sail the last week in June, and I shall manage to spend a few days at Stoneleigh before I go. How is your father? Write me soon, and if you can do so please send me a pound or two. I have so very little; and I had to borrow of Ted, who, I must say, loaned me rather unwillingly, I thought, while Trevellian, whom I tried cautiously, never took the hint at all. It must be I am going off and have not the same power over the men which I once had; and yet Mrs. Rossiter-Browne told me the other day that I was called the prettiest woman in Nice, and said she was very proud to have me of her party. What a fool she is, to be sure!"

This letter filled Bessie with disgust and anxiety, too, while for a moment there arose within her a feeling of rebellion and bitter resentment against the woman who got so much from life and left her to bear its burdens alone.

"But I would far rather be what I am than what she is," she thought, as she wiped her tears away and stole softly to her father's room to see if he were still sleeping.

He was usually in a half-unconscious condition now, seldom rousing except to take his meals, or when Bessie made a great effort to interest him, and she did not guess how fast he was failing. The second week in June Daisy came, fresh and bright and eager, and looking almost as young as Bessie, who knew no rest day or night, and was pale and thin and worn, with a look on her face and in her eyes very sad to see in a young girl.

"Oh, mother, I am so glad you have come," she cried, and laying her head in her mother's lap, she sobbed passionately for a moment, while she said: "And you will not go away; will not leave me here alone, with no one to speak to all day long but Dorothy. Oh, mother, the loneliness is so terrible and life is so dreary to me."

For a moment Daisy's heart was stirred with pity for the tired, worn girl, and she half resolved to give up America and stay at home where she was needed. But as the days went on and she saw just what life at Stoneleigh meant, she felt that she could not endure it, and, fondly stroking Bessie's hair and smoothing her pale cheek, she told her she would not be gone long. She should return in September and would positively remain at home all winter and take the care from Bessie.

"Your father will not die," she said. "People live years with his disease; he is better than when I first came home; at least he is more quiet, which is a gain."

And so Bessie gave it up and entered at last into her mother's anticipations of her journey, and listened with some interest to what she had to say of the Rossiter-Brownes, the best and most generous people in the world, for they were not only to bear all her expenses to and from America, but Mrs. Browne had given her a twenty-pound note for any little expenditures necessary for her journey.

"I am sure I don't know why they fancy me as they seem to," Daisy said, "unless they have an idea that I am a much more important personage than I am, and that to take me home as their guest will raise them in the estimation of their friends. They know the McPherson blood is good, and they know about Lady Jane, who Mrs. Browne persists in thinking is my sister-in-law. Did I tell you that the Rossiter-Brownes' old home is near Allington, where your father's aunt is living?"

"No," Bessie replied, looking up with more interest in her manner.

"Well, it is," Daisy continued, "and I mean to beard the old woman in her den and conquer a peace. She has heaps of money, the Brownes say, and is greatly respected in spite of her oddities, and is quite an aristocrat in the little place; and, as I suspect, is far above Mrs. Rossiter-Browne, who wishes to show me to her. She does not guess how the old woman hates us all."

And so Daisy rattled on with her small, tiresome talk, to which Bessie sometimes listened and sometimes did not. The Rossiter-Brownes were in Leamington now, but were coming through Wales on their way to Liverpool, and Mrs. Browne and Augusta were to stop for a day or two at the "George" and take Daisy with them when they left.

"I wish we could show them some attention," Daisy said to her daughter. "Don't you think we might manage a French tea in the garden at four o'clock? We have some rare old china and some solid silver and Dresden linen, and we could get Lucy Jones to wait upon us. Do you think we can do it?"

"Perhaps we can," Bessie replied, reflecting that a French tea in the garden at four o'clock meant only thin slices of bread and butter, with biscuits and possibly some little sponge cakes which would not cost much. She could go without a pair of gloves and make the old ones do. All extras came out of poor little Bessie, but she was accustomed to it, and did not mind, and just now she was so glad to have her mother with her, for Daisy, as if a little remorseful for what she was about to do, was unusually sweet and affectionate and kind, and devoted herself to her husband as she had never done since Bessie could remember. She washed his face and hands and brushed his hair, and wheeled him out into the garden under the old yew tree, where he once slept on the summer morning while she kept the sun and the flies from him. And stooping over him, she asked if he remembered the little girl who used to come to him there when he was a boy.

"Yes; that was Daisy," he said, "but I have not seen her in many a year. Where is she now?" and he looked at her in a strange, bewildered way. Then, as the brain fog lifted a little and cleared away, his chin quivered and he went on: "Oh, Daisy, Daisy; it comes back to me now, the years that are gone, and you as you were then. I loved you so much."

"And don't you love me now, Archie?" she asked, kneeling beside him with her white arms across his knees, while she looked into his face with the old look she could assume so easily, and which moved even this weak man.

Laying his thin, pale hands upon her head, he burst into tears and said;

"Yes, Daisy, I have always loved you, though you have made no part of my life these many years."

"And have you missed me? Have you been unhappy without me?" she asked, and he replied:

"Missed you? Yes; but I have not been unhappy, for I have had Bessie. No man could be unhappy with Bessie, I think I will go in now and find her. I am better with her; and the birds are not singing here."

"What birds?" Daisy asked, looking curiously at him, as, with closed eyes, he leaned wearily back in his chair and replied:

"The birds which sing to me so often; birds of the future, and the past, too, I think they are, for they sing sometimes of you, but oftener of Bessie and a journey far away where she is going to be happy when we are both gone and the winds are blowing across our graves—over there," and he pointed toward the little yard where his father and mother were lying side by side, and where he soon would lie.

For an instant Daisy shuddered, and fancied she felt an icy chill, as if her husband's words were words of prophecy and a blast were blowing upon her from some dark, cold grave. But she was too young to die; death was not for her these many years; it was only waiting for this enfeebled man, whom she wheeled back to the house where Bessie was, and where the birds he heard so often came and sang to him of green fields and flowery meadows beyond the sea, where he saw always Bessie with a look of rest and sweet content upon her face, instead of the tired, watchful, waiting look habitual to it now.

And so, listening to the birds, he fell asleep, as was his wont, and Daisy shook off the chill which had oppressed her, and busied herself with the preparations for her journey.

CHAPTER XVII.

In due time Mrs. Rossiter-Browne and her daughter, Augusta, came to the "George," with their maid, and took possession of the best rooms, and scattered shillings and half-crowns with a lavishness which made every servant their slave. Of course Daisy called, bearing Bessie's compliments and regrets, and then Mrs. Browne and Augusta came to Stoneleigh in the finest turn-out which the hotel could boast, for though the distance was short, Mrs. Browne never walked when she could ride, and on this occasion she was out for a drive, "to see the elephant of Bangor, trunk and all, for she was bound nothing should escape her which she ought to see, if she died for it, and she guessed she should before she got round home, as she was completely tuckered out with sight-seeing," she said, as she sank pantingly into an easy-chair in the large cool room, which Daisy had made very bright and attractive with fresh muslin curtains, a rug, a table-spread, and some tidies brought from Nice. This room, which was only used in summer, had on the floor a heavy Axminster, which had done service for forty years at least, but still showed what it had been, and spoke of the former grandeur of the place, as did the massive and uncomfortable chairs of solid mahogany, the old pier-glass against the wall, and the queerly shaped sofa, on which Daisy had thrown a bright striped shawl, which changed its aspect wonderfully. She wished to make a good impression upon her American friend, and she succeeded beyond her most sanguine hopes. With her ideas of the greatness and importance of the McPhersons, who, if poor, were aristocrats, Mrs. Browne was prepared to see every thing couleur de rose, and the old wainscoted room and quaint furniture delighted her more even than the pretty little devices with which Daisy had thought to make the room more modern and heighten the effect.

"If there's anything I dote on particularly, it's on ancestry halls," Mrs. Rossiter-Browne said, as she looked admiringly around her. "Now them chairs, which a Yankee would hide in the garret, speak of a past and tell you've been somebody a good while. I'd give the world for such an old place as this at home; but, my land! we are that new in America that the starch fairly rattles as we walk. We are only a hundred years old, you know; had our centennial two or three years ago. That was a big show, I tell you; most as good as Europe, and better in some respects, for I could be wheeled in a chair and see things comfortable, while over here, my land! my legs is most broke off, and I tell Gusty I'll have to get a new pair if I stay much longer. Think of me climbing up Pisa, and St. Peter's, and all the Campyniles in the country, and that brass thing in Munich to boot, where I thought I should of sweltered, and all to say you've been there. It's a park of nonsense, I tell 'em, though I s'pose it does cultivate you, and that reconciles me to it."

Here the lady paused for breath, and Augusta, whose face was very red, began to talk to Bessie of Wales and the wild, beautiful scenery. She was as well educated as most young ladies of her class, and was really a very pretty, lady-like girl, who expressed herself well and intelligently, and was evidently annoyed by her mother's manner of speaking, for she tried to keep the conversation in her own hands, and Bessie, who guessed her design, helped her to do so; and after a few moments Mrs. Browne arose to go, and, shaking out her silk flounces and pulling her hands to her ears to make sure her immense diamonds were not unclasped, because, as she said, she would not for a farm lose her solitarys, she said good-morning, and was driven away to see the elephant of Bangor and vicinity.

Bessie drew a long breath of relief as she saw the carriage leave the park, and said: "Oh, mother, how can you find pleasure in her society, and are the Americans generally like her?"

"Not half as good as she, some of them, though vastly more refined and better educated," Daisy replied, warming up in defense of the woman who was so kind to her, and whom she knew to be honest and true as steel. "There are plenty of ignorant, vulgar women in England, traveling on their money recently acquired, who at heart are not half as good as Mrs. Browne," she said; "and for that matter there are titled ladies too who know precious little more than she. Why, old Lady Oakley once sent me a note, in which more than half the words were misspelled, and her capitals were everywhere except in the right place; but she is my lady, and so it is all right. I tell you Bessie, there is, after all, but little difference between the English and the Americans, who, as a class, are better informed than we are and know ten times more about our country than we do about theirs."

Daisy grew very eloquent and earnest as she talked, but Bessie was not convinced, and felt a shrinking from Mrs. Rossiter-Browne as from something positively bad; and here she did the woman great injustice, for never was there a kinder, truer heart than Mrs. Browne's, and if, in her girlhood, she had possessed a tithe of her present fortune, she would have made a far different woman from what she was.

For a few days longer she staid at the "George," and astonished the guests with the richness of her toilets and the singularity of her speech, which was something wonderful to her hearers, who looked upon her as a specimen of Americans generally. But this she would not permit; and once, when she overheard the remark, "that's a fair sample of them, I suppose," turned fiercely on the knot of ladies who, she knew, were discussing her, and said:

"If it's me you are talking up and think a fair sample let me tell you that you are much mistaken. I ain't a sample of nothin'. I am just myself, and Uncle Sam is not at all responsible for me, unless it is that he didn't give me a chance, when young, to go to school. I was poor, and had to work for my livin', and my old blind mother's, too. She is dead this many a year; but if she could of lived till now, when I have so much more than I know what to do with, I'd have dressed her up in silks and satins, and brought her over the seas and flouted her in your faces as another sample of your American cousins, who, take 'em by and large, are quite as refined as your English women, and enough sight better informed about everything. Why, only t'other day one of 'em asked me what language was generally spoken in New York city, and didn't a school-girl from Edinburgh ask Gusty if the people out West were not all heathens, and if Chicago was near Boston! I tell you, ladies, folks who live in glass houses should not throw stones. You are well enough, and nice enough, and on voices you beat us all holler, for 'tis a fact that most of us pitch ours too high and talk through our noses awful, and maybe you'd do that too, if you lived in our beastly climate, but as a rule you have not an atom more learning or refinement at heart than we."

Thus speaking, she sailed from the room with an air which would have befitted a grand duchess, leaving her astonished auditors to look at each other a moment in silence, and then to express themselves fully and freely and unreservedly with regard to American effrontery, American manners, and American slang, as represented by Mrs. Rossiter-Browne.

It was a day or two after this that the French tea was served in the Stoneleigh garden, with strawberries and cream and sponge cakes, and Daisy did the honors as hostess admirably, and Mrs. Rossiter-Browne, resplendent in garnet satin and diamonds, sat in a covered garden-chair and noted everything with a view to repeat it sometime in the garden of her country house at home. "She'd show 'em what was what," she thought. "She'd Let 'em know that she had traveled and had been invited out among the gentry," for such she believed Daisy to be, and she anticipated with a great deal of complacency the sensation which that airy, graceful, woman would create in Ridgeville, the little place a mile or more from Allington, where her husband's farm was situated, and where stood the once old-fashioned house, but now very pretentious residence, which she called the Ridge House. She was going there direct after reaching New York, and thither numerous boxes had preceded her, containing pictures and statuary and other trophies of her travels abroad, and Daisy, whose exquisite taste she knew and appreciated, was to help her arrange the new things, and then "she'd give a smasher of a party," she said, as she sat in her garden-chair and talked of the surprise and happiness in store for the Ridgevillians when she issued cards for her garden party.

"I sha'n't slight nobody at all edible to society," she said, "for I don't believe in that. I shall have Miss Lucy Grey, of course, from Grey's Park, for she is the cream-dilly-cream of Allington, she and your Aunt, Miss McPherson," turning to Daisy, "and mebby I shall ask Hanner Jerrold, though she never goes anywheres—that's Grey's aunt," and now she nodded to Bessie, who at the mention of the name Jerrold, evinced a little interest in what the lady was saying.

Turning to Augusta, who was eating her strawberries and cream in silence, with a look of vexation on her face as her mother floundered on, she said:

"I think you told me you knew Mr. Grey Jerrold?"

"Yes," Augusta replied, "that is, he once spent a summer in Allington and I went to the same school with him; since then we have met several times in Allington and two or three times here. Still, I really know very little of him."

"Who's that you know very little of—Grey Jerrold?" Mrs. Browne chimed in. "Well, I call that droll. Have you forgot how often he used to come home from school with you, and how he fished you out of the pond that time you fell in? Why, he was that free at our house, that he used always to ask for something to eat, and would often add on, 'something baked to day.' You see, he didn't like dry victuals, such as his Aunt Hannah gave him. She is tight as the bark of a tree, and queer too, with it all."

It grated on Bessie's nerves to hear Mrs. Browne speak of Grey as if she were his equal, and recognized as such at home, and she was glad when Augusta said, quietly:

"But, mother, I was a little girl then, six or seven years old, and Grey felt at home at our house because—"

She did not finish the sentence, as she had evidently struck against a reef which her mother overleaped by saying:

"Yes, I know, Grey was always a nice boy, and not one bit stuck up like his proud mother. I hate Geraldine Grey; yes, I do!" and Mrs. Browne manifested the first sign of unamiability which Daisy had ever seen in her. But Daisy, who remembered perfectly the haughty woman she had met at Penrhyn Park years before, hated her, too, and so there was accord between her and her guest.

"Mr. Jerrold told me of his aunt who lives in the pasture, and whom he loves very much. Do you know her?" Bessie asked, and Mrs. Browne replied:

"Yes; that's his Aunt Hanner, the one I told you was so tight. She is an old maid, and queer, too; lives all alone, and saves and lays up every cent. I believe she wears the same black gown now for best which she wore thirteen years ago to her father's funeral. He was a queer one too; crazy, some said, and I guess 'twas true. He took a fancy to stay in one room all the time and would not let anybody in but Hanner, and now he is dead she keeps that room shet up and locked, some say. I was at the funeral, and Grey, who was a boy, took on awful, and hung over the coffin ever so long. He was sick with fever after it, and everybody thought he'd die. He was crazy as a loon. I watched with him one night and he talked every thing you could think of, about a grave hid away somewhere—under his bed, he seemed to think—and made me go down on all fours to look for it. I suppose he was thinking of his grandfather so lately buried. And then, he kept talking about Bessie and asking why she did not come."

"Bessie! Me!" the young girl exclaimed, with crimson cheeks, and Mrs. Browne replied:

"No; 'taint likely it was you; and yet, let me see! Yes, well, I declare; I remember now that his Aunt Lucy, who sat up with me, told me it was a little girl they had talked about before him, a grandniece of Miss Betsey McPherson. Yes, that was you, sure! Isn't it droll, though?"

Bessie did not reply, but in her heart there was a strange feeling as she thought that before she had ever heard of Grey Jerrold, he had been interested in and talked of her in his delirium and in his fevered dreams.

Soon after this, Mrs. Browne arose to go, and said good-by to Bessie, whom she did not expect to see again, as they were to leave on the morrow for Chester, where her husband and son were to meet them. It was Daisy's last day at home, and though she had been away many times for a longer period than it was now her intention to stay, this going was different, for the broad sea she was to cross would put an immense distance between her and her husband and child, and she was unusually quiet and gentle and affectionate, telling Bessie, who seemed greatly depressed, that the summer would pass quickly and she should be back to stay for good until the invalid was better or worse.

The next morning when she went to say good-by to her husband he welcomed her with a smile, and with something of his old, courteous manner put out his hand to greet her. She took it between her own, and raising it to her lips, knelt beside him, and laying her head against his arm, said to him, softly:

"Archie, I have come to say good-by, but only a little while. I shall soon be back to stay with you always, or until you are better."

"I shall never be any better," he replied, never suspecting how far she was going from him, "but go, if you like," he continued, "and be happy. I do not mind it as I used to, for I have Bessie and the birds, who sing to me now all the time. Can't you hear them? They are saying 'Archie, Archie, come,' as if it were my mother calling to me."

His mind was wandering now, and Daisy felt a thrill of pain as she looked at him and felt that he was not getting better, that he was failing fast, though just how fast she did not guess.

"Archie," she said, at last, "you love me, don't you? You told me you did in the garden the other day, but I want to hear it again."

"Love you? You?" he said, inquiringly, as he looked at her with an unsteady, imbecile gaze as if to ask who she was that he should love her.

"Yes," she said. "I am Daisy. Don't you remember the little girl who used to come to you under the yews?"

"Yes," and his lip trembled a little. "The girl who gave herself and her bonnet to shield me from the flies and sun. You did that then; but Bessie has given herself to me, body and soul, through cold and hunger, sunshine and storm. God bless her, God bless my darling Bessie."

"And won't you bless me, too, Archie? I should like to remember that in time to come," Daisy said, seized by some impulse she could not understand.

Archie hesitated a moment as if not quite comprehending her, then drawing her down to him he kissed her with the old, fervent kiss he used to give her when they were boy and girl together, and, laying his hand upon her head, said tremblingly:

"Will God bless Daisy, too, and bring her at last to where I shall be waiting for her?"

Then Daisy withdrew herself from him, and without another word went out from his presence and never saw him again. To Bessie, sobbing by the door, she said very little; there was a passionate embrace and a few farewell kisses and then she was gone, and twenty minutes later Bessie heard the train as it passed bearing her mother away.

CHAPTER XVIII.

Daisy wrote to her daughter from Liverpool where they were stopping at the Adelphi, and where Lord Hardy had joined them en route for America and the far West.

"He is not at all the Ted he used to be," Daisy wrote, "and it really seems as if he blames me because he has lost so much at Monte Carlo. In fact, he says if I had not smuggled him in, he should probably never have played there at all. I think I shall know it when I take another young Irishman in hand. By the way, he brought me news of the death of Sir Henry Trevellian, of Trevellian Castle, in the north of England He was thrown from his horse and killed instantly Jack Trevellian was with him, and, it is said, was nearly heart-broken, though by this accident he has become Sir Jack, and is master of a fine old place and a tolerably fair fortune. He will be much sought after now, but if ever he comes in your way again, and you play your cards well you may be my Lady Trevellian. How does that sound to you?"

"Sir Jack Trevellian," Bessie repeated to herself, while there swept over her a great pity for the poor young man, smitten down so suddenly, while for Jack she was glad, knowing how well he would fill the place and how worthy he was of it.

Of herself, as Lady Bessie Trevellian she never thought, though there came to her a strong presentiment that she should see Jack again ere long—that he would come to tell her of his new honor, and would he just as kind and friendly and familiar as he was that day in the park when she first saw him more than two years ago.

Three days later and there came another short letter from her mother, written on shipboard and sent off at Queenstown. The sea had been very rough and the Brownes and Lord Hardy were sick in their state-rooms, as were many of the passengers, but Daisy had never felt better in her life and was enjoying herself immensely. She should cable as soon as she reached New York, and she bade Bessie keep up good courage, and sent her love and a kiss to Archie, who, if Bessie thought best, might now be told where she had gone.

Archie was sleeping very quietly when Bessie went into his room, taking her mother's letter with her. But there was a white pinched look upon his face which she had never seen there before, and it seemed to her that his breath was growing shorter and more labored, as she watched him with a beating heart until she could no longer endure the fear which had seized upon her, and stooping down, she called aloud:

"Father, father!"

Her voice awoke him, and lifting his eyes to her face, he smiled upon her the old, loving smile she knew so well and which reassured her a little.

"You have slept very sweetly, and you are better," she said to him, and he replied:

"No, Bessie, not better. I shall never be any better in this world. There is a weakness all over me this morning, and I cannot lift my hand to touch you—see?" and he tried to raise the thin, wasted hand lying so helplessly upon the counterpane.

Taking it in her own, Bessie felt that it was cold as ice, but she rubbed it gently, and said:

"It is only numb, I shall soon make it warm again."

"No, Bessie; never any more warmth for me. I know it now; the end is very near, and the birds are singing everywhere, just as they sang in the summer mornings years ago, when I was a boy. I used to lie on the grass under the yews, and listen to them, and think they were singing of my future, which I meant should be so bright. Oh, Bessie, everything has been so different; everything has changed but you and the birds, singing now to me of another future which will be bright and fair. What season is it, Bessie? My mind wanders a little. Is it summer again in the dear old rose-scented-garden?"

"Yes, father; summer everywhere," Bessie answered him with a choking sob, and he continued:

"I am glad. I would rather die in the summer time just as father and mother did. Bury me by them, Bessie; with no expense, and when Daisy dies lay her by me, too, in the grass where the birds are singing. She ought to be here now—to-day; send for her, Bessie; send at once, if a telegram can reach her."

Bessie must tell him now, and kissing his pale forehead, she said:

"A telegram cannot reach her, father, for she is on the sea, going to America."

"Gone to America! When she knew how sick I was. Oh, Daisy, Daisy, I would not have served you so," the sick man cried, with a bitter cry, which rang in Bessie's ears many a day, but did not reach the heartless woman at that very moment coquetting with the doctor of the ship, and tapping his arm playfully with her fan as she told him she had lost her appetite for everything but champagne, and asked what he would advise her to take.

"She was invited to go by some friends, who bear all the expense. She has long wished to see America, and it was such a good opportunity that she took it. She will not be gone long; only through the summer," Bessie said, trying to find excuse for her mother, but Archie shook his head, and replied:

"I shall not be here when she comes back; shall not be here to-morrow; and, oh, my child, what will you do? You cannot live here alone, and my annuity dies with me. Bessie, oh, Bessie, you will not pursue your mother's course?"

"Never! so help me Heaven!" Bessie answered, as she fell on her knees beside him, and bowed her face in her hands.

Surely in this extremity she might tell him of her engagement to Neil, and after a moment she said:

"Father, don't let a thought of my future trouble you. That is provided for. I am to be Neil's wife. We settled that last Christmas, but he did not wish me to tell you till something definite was arranged. He meant you to live with us. We were not to be separated; he is very kind," she added, earnestly, as she felt her father's surprise and possible disapprobation in his silence.

"And you love him? You believe he will make you happy?" Archie said, at last, and Bessie replied:

"I love him; and I believe he will make me as happy as I can be with you gone. Oh, father, you don't like Neil! You never did."

There was reproach in Bessie's voice, as she said this, and the sick man answered her:

"There are many noble traits in Neil's character, but he is a McPherson, with all their foolish pride of birth, and blood, and ancestors. As if paupers like us have any right to such nonsense! Were I to live my life again, I would turn a hand-organ in the street to earn my bread if there were no other way. Yes, Neil is very nice and good, but not the husband I would have chosen for you. I liked the others better, Mr. Trevellian, and the American—what is his name?"

"Jerrold, Grey Jerrold," Bessie replied, and after a moment her father continued:

"Where is Neil? His place is here with you, if he is to be your husband. Send for him at once; there is no time to lose. You must not be alone, and the hours are very few, and the birds are singing so loud; send for Neil at once."

Bessie did not know where Neil was now, as the last time she heard from him he was in Paris, with his mother and Blanche; but she would take the chance that he was at home, and a telegram that her father was dying and he must come immediately was soon speeding along the wires to Trevellian House, in London.

Slowly the hours of that glorious summer day went by, and Archie's pulse grew fainter and his voice weaker, while the real birds without in the yews, and in the hedge-rows, and the imaginary birds within, sang louder and clearer, and the dying man listened to them with a rapt look in his white face, and a light in his eyes which told of peace and a perfectly painless death.

At last the day was ended, and the shades of night crept in and around the old gray house, while a darker shadow than any which night ever brings was in the sick-room where Archie lay, half unconscious, and talking, now of Daisy, now of Bessie, and now of Neil and asking if he had come. He had not nor any answer to the telegram, and Bessie's heart was very heavy and sad with a sense of desertion and terrible loneliness. How could she bear to be alone with her dead father, and only Anthony and Dorothy to counsel her? What should she do, and where was Neil, that he made no response to tell her he was coming? She did not consider that, even had he received the telegram, he could not reach Stoneleigh that night.

She did not realize anything except the dread and pain which weighed her down, as, with her father's hand in hers, she sat waiting for the end, while the old servants stole in and out noiselessly.

Suddenly, as she waited thus, she caught the sound of a footstep without, a quick footstep which seemed familiar to her, and with a cry of "Neil!" on her lips, she arose swiftly, and hastened to the outer door just as the tall form of a young man stood before the threshold.

Bessie's eyes were full of tears, and the lamp on the bracket rather blinded than helped her, and so she could not see the stranger distinctly; but it was Neil, of course—come in response to her summons; and with a great glad cry she sprang toward the young man, and clinging convulsively to him, sobbed out:

"Oh, Neil, Neil! I am so glad you have come, for father is dying, and I am all alone. It is so dreadful, and what shall I do? Oh, oh, it isn't Neil!" and she gave a little scream of terror and surprise, as, looking up, she met Grey Jerrold's face bending over her instead of Neil's.

Grey had been to Carnarvon on the old business, and, moved by a desire to see Bessie's blue eyes again, had come to the "George Hotel" to pass the night, intending to call at Stoneleigh in the morning. But hearing of Mr. McPherson's illness, he had decided to step over that night and inquire for him, and thus it was that he found himself in a very novel position, with Bessie sobbing in his arms, which had involuntarily opened to receive her when she made the rush toward him.

"No, it is not Neil," he said, trying to detain her as she drew herself from him. "It is Grey; but perhaps I can help you. I heard at the 'George' of your father's illness, and came at once. Is he so very bad?" And, leading her to a sofa and sitting down beside her, he continued: "Tell me all your trouble, please, and what I can do for you."

Grey's voice was very low and soft, and had in it all the tenderness and gentleness of a sympathizing woman, and it touched Bessie as Neil's words of love could not have touched her had he been there beside her. Bursting into a fresh fit of sobbing, she told Grey of her father's serious illness, and her loneliness and desolation, and how glad she was he had come.

"I telegraphed to Neil," she said, "and thought you were he, though it is not time for him to be here, even if he received the telegram. Perhaps he is not in London: do you know?"

Grey did not know, as he had not heard from Neil in some time; but he comforted Bessie as well as he could, and said he hoped her father might yet recover.

"No, he cannot," Bessie replied. "He will soon be dead, and I shall be alone, all alone; for mother has gone to America with a Mrs. Rossiter-Browne, who lives in or near Allington? You know her, I believe," and Bessie looked up in time to see the look of surprise and the half-amused smile which flitted over Grey's face as he replied:

"Mrs. Rossiter-Browne? Oh, yes, I know her. I have always known her. She is a good, kind-hearted woman, and your mother is safe with her."

Bessie felt intuitively that Grey was keeping something back, which he might have told her, but she respected him far more for speaking kindly of Mrs. Rossiter-Browne than she would have done, if he had said, as he might have done: "Oh, Yes, I know Mrs. Rossiter-Browne. She was for years my Aunt Lucy's hired girl, Angeline Peters, who married Isaac Brown, the hired man, and became plain Mrs. Ike Brown, until some lucky speculation turned the tide and gave them immense wealth, when she blossomed out into a fine lady, and, dropping the Ike, adopted her husband's middle name, Rossiter, with a hyphen to heighten the effect, and so became Mrs. Rossiter-Browne."

All this Bessie learned afterward, but now she was too full of grief to care what Mrs. Rossiter-Browne had been, or what she was. All her thoughts were with her father, whose weak voice was soon heard calling to her:

"Bessie, are you here?"

"Yes, father," she said, going quickly into the sick-room, followed by Grey, who saw in Archie's face the look which comes once, and but once, to all, and knew that his life was numbered by hours, if not, indeed, by minutes.

"Bessie," the sick man said, as she bent over him "has he come? I heard some one speaking to you."

"Neil has not come; it is not time. It is Mr. Jerrold who is here. He was with us last Christmas, you remember."

"Yes," Mr. McPherson replied, "the American; I remember. I liked him very much. I wish it were he rather than Neil."

Grey looked curiously at Bessie, who knew what her father meant and that his mind was wandering. After a few moments, during which Archie appeared to be sleeping, he started suddenly and seemed to listen intently. Then he said:

"The birds have stopped singing, but I hear other music; the songs of the redeemed, and my mother is there by the gate waiting for me, just as I shall wait one day for you, my child. Give me your hand, Bessie, I want to feel that you are with me to the last."

She put her hand in his, and Grey noticed with a pang how small and thin it was and brown, too, with toil. Some such thought must have been in Archie's mind, for, pressing the fingers to his lips, he continued:

"Poor little tired hands, which have done so much for me. May they have rest by and by. Oh, Bessie, darling, God bless you, the dearest, sweetest daughter a man ever had. Be kind to her, young man. I leave her in your charge; there is no one else to care for her. Good-by; God bless you both."

He did not speak after that, though he lingered for some hours, his breath growing fainter, and fainter until, just as the summer morning was stealing into the room, old Anthony, who, with his wife, had been watching by him, said, in a whisper:

"God help us; the master is dead!"

Bessie uttered no sound, but over her face there crept such a pallor and look of woe that Grey involuntarily passed his arm around her and said:

"Let me take you into the air."

She did not resist him, but suffered him to lead her into the garden, which was sweet with the perfume of roses and cool with the fresh morning dew, and where the birds were singing in the old yew trees as blithely and merrily as if no young heart were breaking in their midst. In a large rustic-chair, where Archie had often sat, Grey made Bessie sit down, and when he saw her shiver as if with cold, he left her a moment while he went to the house for a shawl and a glass of wine, and some eau-de-cologne, which he brought to her himself. Wrapping the shawl around her as deftly as a woman could have done, he made her taste the wine, and dipping her handkerchief in the cologne bathed her forehead with it and pushed back a few locks of her wavy hair, which had fallen over her face. And all the time he did not speak until Bessie said to him:

"Thank you, Mr. Jerrold. You are so kind. I am glad you are here. What should I do without you, and what shall I do anyway? What must I do?"

"Leave it all to me," he answered her. "Don't give the matter a thought, but try and rest; and when you feel that you can, I will take you back to the house."

"No, no," she said quickly. "Let me stay here in the sunshine with the birds who used to sing to him. It seems as if he were here with me."

So he brought her a pillow for her head, and a hassock for her feet, and wrapped her shawl more closely around her, and made her taste the wine again. Then he went back to the house and consulted Anthony and Dorothy with regard to what was to be done. The funeral was fixed for the fourth day, and Grey telegraphed to London, with instructions, that if the family were not in town the message should be forwarded to them immediately. Then he cabled to Daisy, ship Celtic, New York, and lest by any chance she should miss the news at the wharf he asked that a dispatch be sent to her at Allington, Mass., care of Mrs. Rossiter-Browne, who, he knew, would in all probability go at once to her country home.

"Mrs. McPherson can return or remain where she is. I have done my duty to her," he thought, as he busied himself with the many details it was necessary to see to. "If Neil were only here," was his constant thought, as the day wore on, and he found himself in the rather awkward position of master of ceremonies in a strange house, deferred to and advised with not only by Anthony and Dorothy, but by all the people who came to assist.

But Neil did not come, and the night came and went, and it was morning again, and Bessie, who had passed the most of the preceding day in the garden, and had only returned to the house late in the afternoon, seemed a little brighter and fresher, with a look of expectancy in her face whenever a train dashed by. She was watching for Neil, and when at about four o'clock a carriage came through the park gates, she rose and went swiftly to the door, meeting not Neil, but Jack Trevellian, whose face and manner told plainly how great was his sympathy with the desolate young girl. He was in London, he said, and chanced to be calling at the Trevellian house where he learned that all the family, Neil included, were at Vichy, where Lady Jane had gone for the waters and bathing. Just as he was leaving, Grey's telegram was received, and the housekeeper, Mrs. Jervis, told him that another telegram had come two days before for Mr. Neil, from Stoneleigh.

"I did not open it," she said, "as did not suppose it of any consequence. He often has despatches, and as I expect him home within a week or ten days I put it on the table in the hall. You will find it there," she continued, as she saw Jack unceremoniously tear open the envelope just received, and heard his cry of surprise.

Then, quick as thought, he read the first telegram from Bessie, telling of her father's illness and asking Neil to come at once.

"Poor little Bessie, alone with her dead father," he said, and his heart throbbed with a great pity for the girl who, he supposed, was alone, for Grey had not signed his own but Bessie's name to the message he had sent.

In an instant Jack's resolution was taken, and he acted upon it at once. The telegram was forwarded to Vichy, together with the fact that he was going immediately to Stoneleigh, where he would await any orders they chose to send. Then he took the first train for Wales, and reached Bangor about three o'clock the next day. All this he explained after expressing his surprise at finding Grey there, and saying to him, good-humoredly:

"You always manage to get ahead of me. If I ever get to heaven I do believe I shall find you there before me."

"I hope so," Grey answered, laughingly, and then added: "We ought to have heard from Vichy before this time, if they received your message yesterday."

"That's so," Jack replied, adding after a moment: "It may be waiting for me at the 'George.' They would naturally direct it there."

And on sending to inquire if there was anything for him at the hotel, there was brought to him an envelope directed to "Sir Jack Trevellian," received that morning, the bar-maid said. Breaking the seal, Jack read aloud: