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Title: Bessie's Fortune
       A Novel

Author: Mary J. Holmes

Release Date: March 7, 2005 [EBook #15275]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1

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BESSIE'S FORTUNE.


A Novel.


MRS. MARY J. HOLMES,

AUTHOR OF

TEMPEST AND SUNSHINE.--DARKNESS AND DAYLIGHT.--MILBANK.--ENGLISH
ORPHANS.--LENA RIVERS.--ETHELYN'S MISTAKE.--HUGH
WORTHINGTON.--MADELINE.--WEST LAWN.--MARIAN GREY--EDNA BROWNING, ETC.


NEW YORK:
_G.W. Dillingham, Publisher_,
SUCCESSOR TO G.W. CARLETON & CO.
LONDON: S. LOW, SON & CO.
MDCCCLXXXVIII.


TO MY NEPHEW,

WALTER H. TWICHELL

(OF WORCESTER. MASS.)

I DEDICATE THIS STORY OF BESSIE,

WHICH WILL REMIND HIM OF A HAPPY YEAR IN EUROPE.




CONTENTS


PART I.

I. The Jerrolds of Boston
II. Grey Jerrold
III. Lucy
IV. Thanksgiving Day at Grey's Park
V. The Old Man and the Boy
VI. Miss Betsey McPherson
VII. The Dinner at Which Bessie is Introduced
VIII. After The Dinner
IX. The Horror at the Farm-House
X. The Interview
XI. At the Old Man's Bedside
XII. The Story
XIII. Facing it
XIV. The Effect of the Story
XV. Grey and the Secret
XVI. Expecting Bessie


PART II.

I. Stoneleigh
II. The McPhersons
III. At Monte Carlo
IV. Little Bessie
V. At Penrhyn Park
VI. Seven Years Later
VII. Neil's Discomforture
VIII. Jack and Bessie
IX. Christmas at Stoneleigh
X. Grey
XI. Christmas Day
XII. The Contract
XIII. The New Grey
XIV. Miss McPherson and the Letter
XV. From January to March
XVI. From March to June
XVII. Mrs. Rossiter-Browne
XVIII. The Birds which sang, and the shadows which Fell
XIX. What Grey and Jack Did
XX. What The McPhersons Did
XXI. What Daisy Did


PART III.

I. In Rome
II. Farewell
III. Dead
IV. Poor Daisy
V. Bessie's Decision
VI. In Liverpool
VII. On the Ship
VIII. Grey and his Aunt
IX. Bessie is Promoted
X. Bessie meets her Aunt
XI. Miss McPherson's Housemaid
XII. Bessie's Successor
XIII. Bessie goes to Grey's Park
XIV. Telling Bessie
XV. Wedding Bells
XVI. Bessie's Fortune
XVII. Old Friends
XVIII. Home again
XIX. Joel Rogers' Monument
XX. After Five Years




BESSIE'S FORTUNE.




PART I.




CHAPTER I.

THE JERROLDS OF BOSTON.


Mrs. Geraldine Jerrold, of Boston, had in her girlhood been Miss
Geraldine Grey, of Allington, one of those quiet, pretty little towns
which so thickly dot the hills and valleys Of New England. Her father,
who died before her marriage, had been a sea-captain, and a man of great
wealth, and was looked upon as a kind of autocrat, whose opinion was a
law and whose friendship was an honor. When a young lady, Miss Geraldine
had chafed at the stupid town and the stupider people, as she designated
the citizens of Allington, and had only been happy when the house at
Grey's Park was full of guests after the manner of English houses, where
hospitality is dispensed on a larger scale than is common in America.
She had been abroad, and had spent some weeks in Derbyshire at the
Peacock Inn, close to the park of Chatsworth, which she admired so much
that on her return to Allington she never rested until the five acres of
land, in the midst of which her father's house stood, were improved and
fitted up as nearly as possible like the beautiful grounds across the
sea. With good taste and plenty of money, she succeeded beyond her most
sanguine hopes, and Grey's Park was the pride of the town, and the
wonder of the entire county. A kind of show place it became, and Miss
Geraldine was never happier or prouder than when strangers were going
over the grounds or through the house, which was filled with rare
pictures and choice statuary gathered from all parts of the world, for
Captain Grey had brought something curious and costly from every port at
which his vessel touched, so that the house was like a museum, or, as
Miss Geraldine fancied, like the palaces and castles in Europe, which
are shown to strangers in the absence of the family.

At the age of twenty-two, Miss Geraldine had married Burton Jerrold, a
young man from one of the leading banks in Boston, and whose father,
Peter Jerrold, had, for years, lived on a small farm a mile or more from
the town of Allington. So far as Geraldine knew, the Jerrold blood was
as good as the Grey's, even if old Peter did live a hermit life and wear
a drab overcoat which must have dated back more years than she could
remember. No one had ever breathed a word of censure against the
peculiar man, who was never known to smile, and who seldom spoke except
he was spoken to, and who, with his long white hair falling around his
thin face, looked like some old picture of a saint, when on Sunday he
sat in his accustomed pew by the door, and like the publican, seemed
almost to smite upon his breast as he confessed himself to be a
miserable sinner.

Had Burton Jerrold remained at home and been content to till the barren
soil of his father's rocky farm, not his handsome face, or polished
manners, or adoration of herself as the queen of queens, could have won
a second thought from Geraldine, for she hated farmers, who smelled of
the barn and wore cowhide boots, and would sooner have died than been a
farmer's wife. But Burton had never tilled the soil, nor worn cowhide
boots nor smelled of the barn, for when he was a mere boy, his mother
died, and an old aunt, who lived in Boston, took him for her own, and
gave him all the advantages of a city education until he was old enough
to enter one of the principal banks as a clerk; then she died and left
him all her fortune, except a thousand dollars which she gave to his
sister Hannah, who still lived at home upon the farm, and was almost as
silent and peculiar as the father himself.

"Marry one of the Grey girls if you can," the aunt had said to her
nephew upon her death bed. "It is a good family, and blood is worth more
than money; it goes further toward securing you a good position in
Boston society. The Jerrold blood is good, for aught I know, though not
equal to that of the Greys. Your father is greatly respected in
Allington, where he is known, but he is a codger of the strictest type,
and clings to everything old-fashioned and _outre_. He has resisted all
my efforts to have him change the house into something more modern, even
when, for the sake of your mother, I offered to do it at my own expense.
Especially was I anxious to tear down that projection which he calls a
lean-to, but when I suggested it to him, and said I would bring a
carpenter at once, he flew into such a passion as fairly frightened me.
'The lean-to should not be touched for a million of dollars; he
preferred it as it was,' he said; so I let him alone. He is a strange
man, and--and--Burton, I may be mistaken, but I have thought there was
something he was hiding. Else, why does he never smile, or talk, or look
you straight in the face? And why is he always brooding, with his head
bent down and his hands clenched together? Yes, there _is_ something
hidden, and Hannah knows it, and this it is which turned her hair grey
so early, and has made her as queer and reticent as your father. There
is a secret between them, but do not try to discover it. There may be
disgrace of some kind which would affect your whole life, so let it
alone. Make good use of what I leave you, and marry one of the Greys.
Lucy is the sweeter and the more amiable, but Geraldine is more
ambitious and will help you to reach the top."

This was the last conversation Mrs. Wetherby ever held with her nephew,
for in two days more she was dead, and Burton buried her in Mt. Auburn,
and went back to the house which was now his, conscious of three
distinct ideas which even during the funeral had recurred to him
constantly. First, that he was the owner of a large house and twenty
thousand dollars; second, that he must marry one of the Greys, if
possible; and third, that there was some secret between his father and
his sister Hannah; something which had made them what they were;
something which had given his father the name of the half-crazy hermit,
and to his sister that of the recluse; something which he must never try
to unearth, lest it bring disquiet and disgrace.

That last word had an ugly sound to Burton Jerrold, who was more
ambitious even than his aunt, more anxious that people in high positions
should think well of him, and he shivered as he repeated it to himself,
while all sorts of fancies flitted though his brain.

"Nonsense!" he exclaimed at last, as he arose, and, walking to the
window, looked out upon the common, where groups of children were
playing. "There is nothing hidden. Why should there be? My father has
never stolen, or forged, or embezzled, or set any one's house on fire.
They esteem him a saint in Allington, and I know he reads his Bible all
the time when he is not praying, and once he was on his knees in his
bedroom a whole hour, for I timed him, and thought he _must_ be crazy.
Of course so good a man can have nothing concealed, and yet--"

Here Burton shivered again, and continued: "And yet, I always seem to be
in a nightmare when I am at the old hut, and once I told Hannah I
believed the house was haunted, for I heard strange sounds at night,
soft footsteps, and moans, and whisperings, and the old dog Rover howled
so dismally, that he kept me awake, and made me nervous and wretched, I
don't remember what Hannah said, except that she made light of my fears,
and told me that she would keep Rover in her room at night on the floor
by her bed, which she did ever after when I was at home. No, there is
nothing, but I may as well sound Hannah a little, and will go to her at
once."

When Mrs. Wetherby died, her nephew sent a message to his father and
sister, announcing her death, and the time of the funeral. He felt it
his duty to do so much, but he did not say to them, "Come, I expect
you." In fact, away down in his heart, there was a hope that they would
not come. His father was well enough in Allington, where he was known;
but, what a figure he would cut in Boston, in his old drab surtout and
white hat, which he had worn since Burton could remember. Hannah was
different, and must have been pretty in her early girlhood. Indeed, she
was pretty now, and no one could look into her pale, sad face, and soft
dark eyes, or listen to her low, sweet voice, without being attracted
to her and knowing instinctively that, in spite of her plain Quakerish
dress, she was a lady in the true sense of the word. So, when she came
alone to pay the last token of respect to the aunt who had never been
very gracious to her, Burton felt relieved, though he wished that her
bonnet was a little more fashionable, and suggested her buying a new
one, which he would pay for. But Hannah said "no," very quietly and
firmly, and that was the end of it. The old style bonnet was worn as
well as the old style cloak, and Burton felt keenly the difference
between her personal appearance and his own. He, the Boston dandy, with
every article of dress as faultless as the best tailor could make it,
and she, the plain countrywoman, with no attempt at style or fashion,
with nothing but her own sterling worth to commend her, and this was far
more priceless than all the wealth of the Indies. Hannah Jerrold had
been tried in the fire, and had come out purified and almost Christlike
in her sweet gentleness and purity of soul. She knew her brother was
ashamed of her--whether designedly or not, he always made her feel
it--but she had felt it her duty to attend her aunt's funeral, even
though it stirred anew all the bitterness of her joyless life.

And now the funeral was over, and she was going home that very
afternoon--to the gloomy house among the rocks, where she had grown old,
and her hair gray long before her time--going back to the burden which
pressed so heavily upon her, and from which she shrank as she had never
done before. Not that she wished to stay in that grand house, where she
was so sadly out of place, but she wanted to go somewhere, anywhere, so
that she escaped from the one spot so horrible to her. She was thinking
of all this and standing with her face to the window, when her brother
entered the room and began, abruptly:

"I say, Hannah, I want to ask you something. Just before Aunt Wetherby
died, she had a long talk with me on various matters, and among other
things she said she believed there was something troubling you and
father, some secret you were hiding from me and the world. Is it so? Do
you know anything which I do not?"

"Yes, many things."

The voice which gave this reply was not like Hannah's voice, but was
hard and sharp, and sounded as if a great ways off, and Burton could see
how violently his sister was agitated, even though she stood with her
back to him. Suddenly he remembered that his aunt had also said: "If
there is a secret, never seek to discover it, lest it should bring
disgrace." And here he was, trying to find it out almost before she was
cold. A great fear took possession of Burton then, for he was the
veriest moral coward in the world, and before Hannah could say another
word, he continued:

"Yes, Aunt Wetherby was right. There is something; there has always been
something; but don't tell me, please, I'd rather not know."

He spoke very gently for him, for somehow, there had been awakened
within him a great pity for his sister, and by some sudden intuition he
seemed to understand all her loneliness and pain. If there had been a
wrongdoing it was not her fault; and as she still stood with her back to
him, and did not speak, he went up to her, and laying his hand upon her
shoulder, said to her:

"I regret that I asked a question which has so agitated you, and,
believe me, I am sorry for you, for whatever it is, you are innocent."

Then she turned toward him with a face as white as ashes and a look of
terror in her large black eyes, before which he quailed. Never in his
life, since he was a little child, had he seen her cry, but now, after
regarding him fixedly a moment, she broke into such a wild fit of
sobbing that he became alarmed, and passing his arm around her, lead her
to a seat and made her lean her head upon him, while he smoothed her
heavy hair, which was more than half gray, and she was only three years
his senior.

At last she grew calm, and rising up, said to him:

"Excuse me, I am not often so upset--I have not cried in years--not
since Rover died," here her voice trembled again, but she went on quite
steadily. "He was all the companion I had, you know, and he was so
faithful, so true. Oh, it almost broke my heart when he died and left me
there alone!"

There was a world of pathos in her voice, as she uttered the last two
words, "There alone," and it flashed upon Burton that there was more
meaning in them than was at first indicated; that to live there alone
was something from which his sister recoiled. Standing before her, with
his hand still upon her head, he remembered, that she had not always
been as she was now, so quiet and impassive, with no smile upon her
face, no joy in her dark eyes. As a young girl, in the days when he,
too, lived at home, and slept under the rafters in the low-roofed house,
she had been full of life and frolic, and played with him all day long.
She was very pretty then, and her checks, now so colorless, were red as
the damask roses which grew by the kitchen door, while her wavy hair was
brown, like the chestnuts they used to gather from the trees, in the
rocky pasture land. It was wavy still, and soft and luxurient, but it
was iron grey, and she wore it plain, in a knot at the back of her head,
and only a few short hairs, which would curl about her forehead in spite
of her, softened the severity of her face. Just when the change began in
his sister. Burton could not remember, for, on the rare occasions when
he visited his home he had not been a close observer, and had only been
conscious of a desire to shorten his stay as much as possible, and
return to his aunt's house, which was much more to his taste. He should
die if he had to live in that lonely spot, he thought, and in his newly
awakened pity for his sister, he said to her, impulsively:

"Don't go back there to stay. Live with me. I am all alone, and must
have some one to keep my house. Von and I can get on nicely together."

He made no mention of his father, and he did not half mean what he said
to his sister, and had she accepted his offer he would have regretted
that it had ever been made. But she did not accept it, and she answered
him at once:

"No, Burton, so long as father lives I must stay with him, and you will
be happier without than with me. We are not at all alike. But I thank
you for asking me all the same, and now it is time for me to go, if I
take the four o'clock train. Father will be expecting me."

Burton went with her to the train, and saw her into the car, and bought
her _Harper's Monthly_, and bade her good-by, and then, in passing out,
met and lifted his hat to the Misses Grey, Lucy and Geraldine, who had
been visiting in Boston, and were returning to Allington.

This encounter drove his sister from his mind, and made him think of his
aunt's injunction to marry one of the Greys. Lacy was the prettier and
gentler of the two, the one whom everybody loved, and who would make him
the better wife. Probably, too, she would be more easily won than the
haughty Geraldine, who had not many friends. And so, before he reached
his house on Beacon street, he had planned a matrimonial campaign and
carried it to a successful issue, and made sweet Lucy Grey the mistress
of his home.

It is not our purpose to enter into the details of Burton's wooing.
Suffice it to say, that it was unsuccessful, for Lucy said "No," very
promptly, and then he tried the proud Geraldine, who listened to his
suit, and, after a little, accepted him, quite as much to his surprise
as to that of her acquaintances, who knew her ambitious nature.

"Anything to get away from stupid Allington," she said to her sister
Lucy, who she never suspected had been Burton's first choice. "I hate
the country, and I like Boston, and like Mr. Jerrold well enough. He is
good-looking, and well-mannered, and has a house and twenty thousand
dollars, a good position in the bank, and no bad habits. Of course, I
would rather that his father and sister were not such oddities: but I am
not marrying them, and shall take good care to keep them in their
places, which places are not in Boston."

And so the two were married, Burton Jerrold and Geraldine Grey, and
there was a grand wedding, at Grey's Park, and the supper was served on
the lawn, where there was a dance, and music, and fireworks in the
evening; and Sam Lawton, a half-witted fellow, went up in a balloon, and
came down on a pile of rocks on the Jerrold farm, and broke his leg; and
people were there from Boston, and Worcester, and Springfield, and New
York, but very few from Allington, for the reason that very few were
bidden. Could Lucy have had her way, the whole town would have been
invited; but Geraldine overruled her, and made herself life-long enemies
of the people who had known her from childhood. Peter Jerrold staid at
home, just as Burton hoped he would, but Hannah was present, in a new
gray silk, with some old lace, and a bit of scarlet ribbon at her
throat, and her hair arranged somewhat after the fashion of the times.
This was the suggestion of Lucy Grey, who had more influence over Hannah
Jerrold than any one else in the world, and when she advised the new
silk, and the old lace, and the scarlet ribbon, Hannah assented readily,
and looked so youthful and pretty, in spite of her thirty years, that
the Rev. Mr. Sanford, who was a bachelor, and had preached in Allington
for several years, paid her marked attention, helping her to ices, and
walking with her for half an hour on the long terrace in a corner of the
park.

There was a trip to Saratoga, and Newport, and the Catskills, and then,
early in September, Burton brought his bride to the house on Beacon
street, which Geraldine at once remodeled and fitted up in a style
worthy of her means, and of the position she meant her husband to
occupy. He was a growing man, and from being clerk in a bank, soon came
to be cashier, and then president, and money and friends poured in upon
him, and Geraldine's drawing-rooms were filled with the elite of the
city. The fashionables, the scholars, the artists, and musicians, and
whoever was in any degree famous, met with favor from Mrs. Geraldine,
who liked nothing better than to fill her house with such people, and
fancy herself a second Madame De Stael, in her character as hostess. All
this was very pleasing to Burton, who, having recovered from any
sentimental feeling he might have entertained for Lucy, blessed the good
fortune which gave him Geraldine instead. He never asked himself if he
loved her; he only knew that he admired, and revered, and worshiped her
as a woman of genius and tact; that what she thought, he thought; what
she wished, he wished; and what she did he was bound to say was right,
and make others think so too. There had been a condescension on her part
when she married him, and she never let him forget it; while he, too,
mentally acknowledged it, and felt that, for it, he owed her perfect
allegiance, from which he never swerved.




CHAPTER II.

GREY JERROLD.


Just a year after the grand wedding at Grey's Park, there was born to
Burton and Geraldine a little boy, so small and frail and puny, that
much solicitude would have been felt for him had there not been a
greater anxiety for the young mother, who went so far down toward the
river of death that every other thought was lost in the great fear for
her. Then the two sisters, Hannah and Lucy, came, the latter giving all
her time to Geraldine, and the former devoting herself to the feeble
little child, whose constant wail so disturbed the mother that she
begged them to take it away where she could not hear it cry, it made her
so nervous.

Geraldine did not like children, and she seemed to care so little for
her baby that Hannah, who had loved it with her whole soul the moment
she took it in her arms and felt its soft cheek against her own, said to
her brother one day:

"I must go home to-morrow, but let me take baby with me. His crying
disturbs your wife, who hears him however far he may be from her room.
He is a weak little thing, but I will take the best of care of him, and
bring him back a healthy boy."

Burton saw no objection to the plan, and readily gave his consent,
provided his wife was willing.

Although out of danger, Geraldine was still too sick to care for her
baby, and so it went with Hannah to the old home among the rocks, where
it grew round and plump, and pretty, and filled the house with the music
of its cooing and its laughter, and learned to stretch its fat hands
toward the old grandfather, who never took it in his arms, or laid his
hands upon it. But Hannah once saw him kneeling by the cradle where the
child was sleeping, and heard him whisper through his tears:

"God bless you, my darling boy, and may you never know what it is to sin
as I have sinned, until I am not worthy to touch you with my finger.
Oh, God forgive and make me clean as this little child."

Then Hannah knew why her father kept aloof from his grandson, and pitied
him more than she had done before.

It was the first of October before Geraldine came up to Allington to
claim her boy, of whom she really knew nothing.

Only once since her marriage had she been to the farm-house, and then
she had driven to the door in her handsome carriage with the
high-stepping bays, and had held up her rich silk dress as she passed
through the kitchen into the "best room," around which she glanced a
little contemptuously.

"Not as well furnished as my cook's room," she thought, but she tried to
be gracious, and said how clean every thing was, and asked Hannah if she
did not get very tired doing her own work, and praised the dahlias
growing by the south door, and ate a few plums, and drank some water,
which she said was so cold that it made her think of the famous well at
Carisbrooke Castle on the Isle of Wight.

"Your well must be very deep. Where is it?" she asked, not because she
cared, but because she must say something.

On being told it was in the woodshed she started for it, and mistaking
the door, was walking into a bedroom, when she was seized roughly by her
father-in-law, whose face was white as ashes, and whose voice shook, as
he said:

"Not in there; this is the way."

For an instant Geraldine looked at him in surprise he seemed so
agitated; then, thinking to herself that probably his room was in
disorder, and the bed unmade, she dismissed it from her mind, and went
to investigate the well, whose water tasted like that at Carisbrooke
Castle.

Half an hour in all she remained at the farm-house, and that was the
only time she had honored it with her presence until the day when she
came to take her boy away.

Not yet fully recovered from her dangerous illness, she assumed all the
airs of an invalid, and kept her wraps around her, and shrank a little
when her husband put her boy in her lap, and asked her if he was not a
beauty, and did not do justice to Hannah's care, and the brindle cow
whose milk he had fed upon. And in truth he was a healthy, beautiful
child, with eyes as blue as the skies of June, and light chestnut hair,
which lay in thick curls upon his head. But he was strange to Geraldine,
and she was strange to him, and after regarding her a moment with his
great blue eyes, he turned toward Hannah, and with a quivering lip began
to cry for her. And Hannah took him in her arms and hugging him to her
bosom, felt that her heart was breaking. She loved him so much, he had
been so much company for her, and had helped to drive away in part, the
horror with which her life was invested, and now he was going from her;
all she had to love in the wide world, and so far as she knew, the only
living being that loved her with a pure, unselfish love.

"Oh, brother! oh, sister!" she cried, as she covered the baby's dimpled
hands with kisses, "don't take him from me; let me have him; let him
stay awhile longer. I shall die here alone with baby gone."

But Mrs. Geraldine said "No," very decidedly, for though as yet she
cared but little for her child, she cared a great deal for the
proprieties, and her friends were beginning to wonder at the protracted
absence of the boy; so she must take him from poor Hannah, who tied on
his scarlet cloak and cap of costly lace, and carried him to the
carriage and put him into the arms of the red-haired German woman who
was hereafter to be his nurse and win his love from her.

Then the carriage drove off, but, as long as it was in sight, Hannah
stood just where it had left her, watching it with a feeling of such
utter desolation as she had never felt before.

"Oh, baby, baby! come back to me!" she moaned piteously. "What shall I
do without you?"

"God will comfort you, my daughter. He can be more to you than baby
was," the old father said to her, and she replied:

"I know that. Yes, but just now I cannot pray, and I am so desolate."

The burden was pressing more heavily than ever, and Hannah's face grew
whiter, and her eyes larger, and sadder, and brighter as the days went
by, and there was nothing left of baby but a rattle-box with which he
had played, and the cradle in which he had slept. This last she carried
to her room up stairs and made it the shrine over which her prayers were
said, not twice or thrice, but many times a day, for Hannah had early
learned to take every care, great and small, to God, knowing that peace
would come at last, though it might tarry long.

Geraldine sent her a black silk dress, and a white Paisley shawl in
token of her gratitude for all she had done for the baby. She also wrote
her a letter telling of the grand christening they had had, and of the
handsome robe from Paris which baby had worn at the ceremony.

"We have called him Grey," Geraldine wrote, "and perhaps, he will visit
you again next summer," but it was not until Grey was two years old,
that he went once more to the farm-house and staid for several months,
while his parents were in Europe.

What a summer that was for Hannah, and how swiftly the days went by,
while the burden pressed so lightly that sometimes she forgot it for
hours at a time, and only remembered it when she saw how persistently
her father shrank from the advances of the little boy, who, utterly
ignoring his apparent indifference, pursued him constantly, plying him
with questions, and sometimes regarding him curiously, as if wondering
at his silence.

One day, when the old man was sitting in his arm-chair under the apple
trees in the yard, Grey came up to him, with his straw hat hanging down
his back, his blue eyes shining like stars, and all over his face that
sweet smile which made him so beautiful. Folding his little white hands
together upon his grandfather's knee, he stood a moment gazing fixedly
into the sad face, which never relaxed a muscle, though every nerve of
the wretched man was strung to its utmost tension and quivering with
pain. The searching blue eyes of the boy troubled him, for it seemed as
if they pierced to the depths of his soul and saw what was there.

"Da-da," Grey said at last. "Take me, peese; I'se tired."

Oh, how the old man longed to snatch the child to his bosom and cover
his face with the kisses he had so hungered to give him, but in his
morbid state of mind he dared not, lest he should contaminate him, so he
restrained himself with a mighty effort, and replied:

"No, Grey, no; I cannot take you. I am tired, too."

"Is you sick?" was Grey's next question, to which his grandfather
replied:

"No, I am not sick," while he clasped both his hands tightly over his
head out of reach of the baby fingers, which sometimes tried to touch
them.

"Is you sorry, then?" Grey continued, and the grandfather replied:

"Yes, child, very, very sorry."

There was the sound of a sob in the old man's voice, and Grey's blue
eyes opened wider as they looked wistfully at the lips trembling with
emotion.

"Has you been a naughty boy?" he said; and, with a sound like a moan,
Grandpa Jerrold replied:

"Yes, yes, very, very naughty. God grant you may never know how
naughty."

"Then why don't Auntie Hannah sut oo up in 'e bed'oom?" Grey asked, with
the utmost gravity, for, in his mind, naughtiness and being shut up in
his aunt's bedroom, the only punishment ever inflicted upon him, were
closely connected with each other.

Almost any one would have smiled at this remark, but Grandpa Jerrold did
not. On the contrary there came into his eyes a look of horror as he
exclaimed:

"Shut me in the bedroom! That would be dreadful indeed."

Then, springing up, he hurried away into the field and disappeared
behind a ledge of rocks, where, unseen by any eye save that of God, he
wept more bitterly than he had ever done before.

"Why, oh, why," he cried, "must this innocent baby's questions torture
me so? and why can I never take him in my arms or lay my hands upon him
lest they should leave a stain?"

Then holding up before him his hard, toil-worn hands, he tried to recall
what it was he had heard or read of another than himself who tried to
rid his hands of the foul spot and could not.

"Only the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin," he whispered
to himself, while his lips moved spasmodically with the prayer habitual
to them; four words only, "Forgive me, Lord, forgive."

It had always been a strong desire with Grey to be led around the
premises by his grandfather, who had steadily resisted all advances of
that kind, until with a child's quick intuition, Grey seemed to
understand that his grandfather's hands were something he must not
touch.

That afternoon, however, as Mr. Jerrold was walking on the green sward
by the kitchen door, with his head bent down and his hands clasped
behind him, Grey stole noiselessly up to him, and grasping the right
hand in both his own, held it fast, while he jumped up and down as he
called out to Hannah, who was standing near:

"I'se dot it, I'se dot it--dada's han', an' I sal keep it, too, and tiss
it hard, like dat," and the baby's lips were pressed upon the rough
hand, which lay helpless and subdued in the two small palms holding it
so tight.

It was like the casting out of an evil spirit, and Granpa Jerrold felt
half his burden rolling away beneath that caress. There was a healing
power in the touch of Grey's lips, and the stain, if stain there were
upon the wrinkled hand, was kissed away, and the pain and remorse were
not so great after that.

Grey had conquered and was free to do what he pleased with the old man,
who became his very slave, going wherever Grey liked, whether up the
steep hill-side in the rear of the house or down upon the pond near by,
where the white lilies grew and where there was a little boat in which
the old man and the child spent hours together, during the long summer
afternoons.

In the large woodshed opposite the well, and very near the window of
Granpa Jerrold's bedroom, a rude bench had been placed for the use of
pails and washbasins, but Grey had early appropriated this to himself
and persisted in keeping his playthings there, in spite of all his
grandfather's remonstrances to the contrary. If his toys were removed
twenty times a day to some other locality, twenty times a day he brought
them back, and arranging them upon the bench sat down by them defiantly,
kicking vigorously against the side of the house in token of his
victory, and wholly unconscious that every thud of his little heels sent
a stab to his grandfather's heart.

What if he should kick through the clapboards? What if the floor should
cave in? Such were the questions which tortured the half crazed man, as
he wiped the perspiration from his face and wondered at the perversity
of the boy in selecting that spot of all others, where he must play and
sit and kick as only a healthy, active child can do.

But after the day when Grey succeeded in capturing his hands, Granpa
Jerrold ceased to interfere with the play-house, and the boy was left in
peace upon the bench, though his grandfather often sat near and watched
him anxiously, and always seemed relieved when the child tired of that
particular spot and wandered elsewhere in quest of amusement.

There was, however, one place in the house which Grey never sought to
penetrate, and that was his grandfather's bedroom. It is true he had
never been allowed to enter it, for one of Hannah's first lessons was
that her father did not like children in his room. Ordinarily this would
have made no difference with Grey, who had a way of going where he
pleased; but the gloomy appearance of the room where the curtains were
always down did not attract him, and he would only go as far as the door
and look in, saying to his aunt:

"Bears in there! Grey not go."

And Hannah let him believe in the bears, and breathed more freely when
he came away from the door, though she frequently whispered to herself.

"Some time Grey will know, for I must tell him, and he will help me."

This fancy that Grey was to lift the cloud which overshadowed her, was a
consolation to Hannah, and helped to make life endurable, when at last
his parents returned from Europe, and he went to his home in Boston.
After that Grey spent some portion of every summer at the farm-house
growing more and more fond of his Aunt Hannah, notwithstanding her quiet
manner and the severe plainness of her personal appearance so different
from his mother and his Aunt Lucy Grey. His Aunt Hannah always wore a
calico dress, or something equally as plain and inexpensive, and her
hands were rough and hard with toil, for she never had any one to help
her. She could not afford it, she said, and that was always her excuse
for the self-denials she practiced. And still Grey knew that she
sometimes had money, for he had seen his father give her gold in
exchange for bills, and he once asked her why she did not use it for her
comfort. There was a look of deep pain in her eyes, and her voice was
sadder than its wont, as she replied:

"I cannot touch that money. It is not mine; it would be stealing, to
take a penny of it."

Grey saw the question troubled his Aunt Hannah, and so he said no more
on the subject, but thought that when he was a man, and had means of his
own, he would improve and beautify the old farm-house, which, though
scrupulously neat and clean, was in its furnishing plain in the extreme.
Not a superfluous article, except what had been sent from Boston, had
been bought since he could remember, and the carpet, and chairs, and
curtains in the best room had been there ever since his father was a
boy. And still Grey loved the place better than Grey's Park, where he
was always a welcome guest, and where his Aunt Lucy petted him, if
possible, more than did his Aunt Hannah.

And sweet Lucy Grey, in her trailing dress of rich, black silk, with
ruffles of soft lace at her throat and wrists, and costly diamonds on
her white fingers, made a picture perfectly harmonious with Grey's
natural taste and ideas of a lady. She was lovely as are the pictures of
Murillo's Madonnas, and Grey, who knew her story, reverenced her as
something saintly and pure above any woman he had ever known. And here,
perhaps, as well as elsewhere, we may very briefly tell her story, in
order that the reader may better understand her character.




CHAPTER III.

LUCY.


She was five years older than her sister Geraldine, and between the two
there had been a brother--Robert, or Robin, as he was familiarly
called--a little blue-eyed, golden-haired boy, with a face always
wreathed in smiles, and a mouth which seemed made to kiss and be kissed
in return. He was three years younger than Lucy, who, having been petted
so long as the only child, looked somewhat askance at the brother who
had come to interfere with her, and as he grew older, and developed that
wonderful beauty and winning sweetness for which he was so remarkable,
the demon of jealousy took possession of the little girl, who felt at
times as if she hated him for the beauty she envied so much.

"Oh, I wish he was blind!" she once said, in anger, when his soft blue
eyes had been extolled in her hearing and compared with her own, which
were black as midnight and bright as the wintry stars.

And, as if in answer to her wish, an accident occurred not long after,
which darkened forever the eyes which had caused her so much annoyance.
Just how it happened no one knew. The two children had been playing in
the dining-room, when a great crash was heard, and a wild cry, and Robin
was found upon the floor screaming with agony, while near him lay a
broken cup, which had contained a quantity of red pepper, which the
housemaid had left upon the sideboard until ready to replenish the
caster. Lucy was crying, too, with pain, for the fiery powder was in her
eyes, also. But she had not received as much as Robin, who from that
hour, never again saw the light of day.

There were weeks of fearful suffering when the little hands were tied to
keep them from the eyes which the poor baby, who was only two years and
a half old, said, "Bite Robin so bad," and which, when at last the pain
had ceased, and the inflammation subsided, were found to be hopelessly
blind.

"Blind! blind! Oh, Robin, I wish I was dead!" Lucy had exclaimed, when
they told her the sad news, and with a bitter cry she threw herself
beside her brother on his little bed and sobbed piteously. "Oh, Robbie,
Robbie, you must not be blind! Can't you see me just a little? Try,
Robbie. You must see me; _you must_."

Slowly the lids unclosed, and the sightless eyes turned upward toward
the white face above them, and then Lucy saw there was no hope; the
beautiful blue she had so envied in her wicked moods, was burned out,
leaving only a blood-shot, whitish mass which would never again in this
world see her or any other object.

"No, shister," the little boy said, "I tan't see 'oo now. It 'marts some
yet, but bime by I see 'oo. Don't ty;" and the little hand was raised
and groped to find the bowed head of the girl weeping in such agony
beside him.

"What for 'oo ty so? I see 'oo bime by," he persisted, as Lucy made no
reply, but wept on until her strength was exhausted and she was taken
from the room in a state of unconsciousness, which resulted in a low
nervous fever, from which she did not recover until Robbie was as well
as he ever would be, and his voice was heard again through the house in
baby laughter, for he had not yet learned what it was to be blind and
helpless.

Lucy had said, when questioned with regard to the accident, that she had
climbed up in a chair to get some sugar for herself and Robin from the
bowl on the shelf of the sideboard, that she saw the cup of pepper and
took it up to see what it was, and let it drop from her hand, directly
into the face of Robin, who was looking up at her. Thus she was
answerable for his blindness, and she grew suddenly old beyond her
years, and devoted herself to her brother, with a solicitude and care
marvelous in one so young, for she was not yet six years old.

"I must be his eyes always as long as I live," she said, and she seldom
left his side or allowed another to care for him in the least.

He slept in a little cot near hers. She undressed him at night, and
dressed him in the morning and gave him his breakfast, always selecting
the daintiest bits for him and giving him the larger share of
everything. Together they wandered in the park, she leading him by the
hand and telling him where they were, or carrying him in her arms, when
the way was rough, and then, when she put him down, always kissing him
tenderly, while on her face there was a look of sadness pitiful to see
in one so young.

When she was seven years old, and Robin four, her mother, who had been
an invalid, ever since the birth of Geraldine, died, and that made
Lucy's burden still heavier to bear. They told her, her mother would not
live till night, and with a look on her face, such as a martyr might
wear when going to the stake, Lucy put Robin from her, and going to her
mother's room, asked to be left alone with her.

"There is something I must tell her. I cannot let her die until I do,"
she said, and so the watchers went out and left the mother and child
together.

What Lucy had to tell, no one knew; but when at the going down of the
sun, the mother was dying, Lucy's head was upon her neck, and so long as
life remained, the pale hand smoothed the dark tresses of the sobbing
girl, and the white lips whispered, softly:

"God bless my little Lucy, He knows it all. He can forgive all. Try to
be happy, and never forsake poor Robbie."

"Never, mother, never," was Lucy's reply, and she kept the vow to the
letter, becoming mother, sister, nurse, and teacher all in one, to the
little blind Robin, who loved her in return with all the intensity of
his nature.

It was the wish of Mr. Grey, that Lucy should be sent to school with the
children of her age, but she objected strongly, as it would take her so
much from Robin; so, a governess was employed in the house and whatever
Lucy learned, she repeated to her brother, who drank in her lessons so
eagerly, that he soon became her equal in everything except the power to
read and write. Particularly was he interested in the countries of
Europe, which he hoped to visit some day, in company with his sister.

"Not that I can ever see them," he said, "but I shall know just how they
look, because you will describe them so vividly, and I can hear the dash
of the sea at Naples, and feel the old pavements in Pompeii, and the
hot lava of Vesuvius. And, oh, perhaps we will go to the Holy Land, and
stand just where Christ once stood, and you will see the hills He looked
upon, and the spot on which He suffered. And I shall be so glad and
somehow feel nearer to Him. And, oh, if He could be there as He was
once--a man, you know--I'd cry to Him louder than ever old Bartimeus
did, and tell Him I was a little blind boy from America, but that I
loved Him, and wanted Him to make me see. And He would, I know."

Such were the dreams of the enthusiastic boy, but they were never to be
realized. Always delicate as a child, he grew more and more so as he
became older, so that at last all mental labor was put aside, and when
he was sixteen, and Lucy nineteen, they took him to St. Augustine, where
he could hear the moan of the sea and fancy it was the Mediterranean in
far-off Italy. Lucy was of course with him, and made him see everything
with her eyes, and took him to the old fort and led him upon the sea
wall and through the narrow streets and out beneath the orange trees,
where he liked best to sit and feel the soft, warm air upon his face and
inhale the sweet perfume of the southern flowers.

But all this did not give him strength. On the contrary, the hectic
flush on his cheek deepened daily, his hands grew thinner and paler, and
the eyelids seemed to droop more heavily over the sightless eyes. Robin
was going to die, and he knew it, and talked of it freely with his
sister, and of Heaven, where Christ would make him whole.

"It will be such joy to see," he said to her one night when they sat
together by the window of his room, with the silvery moonlight falling
on his beautiful face and making it like the face of an angel. "Such joy
to see again, and the very first one I shall look at after Christ and
mother, will be old blind Bartimeus, who sat by the roadside and begged.
I have not had to do that, and my life has been very, very happy, for
you have been my eyes, and made me see everything. You know I have a
faint recollection of the grass, and the flowers, and the trees in the
park, and that has helped me so much; and I have you in my mind, too,
and you are so lovely I know, for I have heard people talk of your
sweet face and beautiful eyes; starry eyes I have heard them called."

"Oh, Robbie, Robbie, don't!" came like cry of pain from Lucy's quivering
lips. But Robin did not heed her, and went on:

"Starry eyes--that's just what they are, I think; and I can imagine how
lovingly they look at me, and how pityingly, too. There is always
something so sad in your voice when you speak to me, and I say to
myself, 'That's how Lucy's eyes look at me, just as her voice sounds
when it says brother Robbie.' I shall know you in heaven, the moment you
come, and I shall be waiting for you, and when I see your eyes I shall
say, 'That is sister Lucy, come at last!' Oh, it will be such joy!--no
night, no blindness, no pain, and you with me again as you have been
here, only there, I shall be the guide, and lead you through the green
pastures beside the still waters, where never-fading flowers are
blooming sweeter than the orange blossoms near our window."

Lucy was sobbing hysterically, with her head in his lap, while he
smoothed the dark braids of her hair, and tried to comfort her by asking
if she ought not to be glad that he was going where there was no more
night for him, and where she, too, would join him in a little while.

"It is not that!" Lucy cried, "though it breaks my heart to think of you
gone forever. How can I live without you? What shall I do when my
expiatory work is finished?"

"Expiatory work?" Robin repeated, questioningly. "What do you mean? What
have you to expiate?--you, the noblest, most unselfish sister in the
world!"

"Much, much. Oh, Robbie, I cannot let you die with this upon my mind,
even if the confession turn your love for me into hate--and you do love
me, I have made your life a little less sad than it might have been but
for me."

"Yes, sister, you have made my life so full of happiness that, darkened
as it is, I would like to cling to it longer, though I know heaven is so
much better."

"Thank you, Robbie--thank you for that" Lucy said; then, lifting up her
head, and looking straight into her brother's face, she continued: "You
say you have a faint recollection of the grass, and the flowers, and
the trees in the park. Have you also any remembrance, however slight,
how I looked when we were little children playing together at home?"

"I don't know for sure," Robin replied, while for an instant a deep
flush stained his pale cheeks: "I don't know for sure. Sometimes out of
those dim shadows of the past which I have struggled so hard to retain,
there comes a vision of a little girl--or, rather, there is a picture
which comes before my mind more distinct than the grass, and the trees,
and the flowers, though I always try to put it away; but it repeats
itself over and over again, and I see it in my dreams so vividly, and
especially of late, when life is slipping from me."

"What is the picture?" Lucy said, and her face was whiter than the one
above her.

"It is this," Robin replied. "I seem to see myself looking up, with
outstretched arms, toward a little girl who is standing above me,
looking down at me with a face which cannot--cannot be the one I shall
welcome to heaven and know as my sister's; for this in the picture has a
cruel expression on it, and there is hatred in the eyes, which are so
large and black, and stare so fixedly at me. Then there is a crash, and
darkness, and a horrible pain, and loud cries, and the eyes fade away in
the blackness, and I know no more till you are sobbing over me and
begging me to say that I can see you. I remember that, I am sure, or
else it has been told me so often that it seems as if I did; but the
other, the face above me, is all a fancy and a delusion of the brain.
You never looked at me that way--never could."

Here he paused, and the girl beside him withdrew herself from him, and
clasping her hands tightly together, knelt abjectly at his feet as she
said:

"Oh, Robbie, Robbie! my darling, if you could know with what shame, and
anguish, and remorse I am kneeling before you, you would pity and
perhaps forgive me when I have told you what I must tell you now. But
don't touch me--don't put your hands upon me, for that would quite
unnerve me," she continued, as she saw the thin hands groping to find
her. "Sit quite still and listen, and then, if you do not loathe me with
a loathing unutterable, call me sister once more, and that will be
enough."

The old cathedral clock was striking twelve when that interview ended,
and when it struck the hour of midnight again Robin Grey lay dead in the
room which looked toward the sea, and the soft south wind, sweet with
the perfume of roses and orange blossoms, kissed his white face and
stirred the thick curls of golden hair clustering about his brow. As is
often the case with consumptives, his death had been sudden at the last,
so sudden that Lucy scarcely realized that he was dying, until she held
him dead upon her bosom. But so long as life lasted he kept repeating
her name in accents of unutterable tenderness and love.

"Lucy, Lucy, my precious sister, God bless you for all you have been to
me, and comfort you when I am gone, darling, darling Lucy, I love you so
much; Lucy, Lucy, Lucy where are you? You must not leave me. Give me
your hand till I reach the river-bank where the angels are waiting for
me, I can see them and the beautiful city over the dark river, though I
can't see you; but I shall in heaven, and I am almost there. Good-by,
good-by, Lucy."

It almost seemed as if, he were calling to her from the other world, for
death came and froze her name upon his lips which never moved again, and
Lucy's work was done. Other hands than hers cared for the dead body,
which was embalmed, and then sent to its northern home.

There were crowds of people at the church where the funeral was held and
where Robin had been baptized. The son of Captain Grey was worthy of
respect, and the citizens turned out _en masse_, so that there was
scarcely standing room in the aisles for all who came to see the last of
Robin. Very touchingly the rector spoke of the deceased, whose short
life had been so pure and holy, and then he eulogized the sister who had
devoted herself so unselfishly to the helpless brother, and who, he
said, could have nothing to regret, nothing to wish undone, so absolute
and entire had been her sacrifice. Hitherto Lucy had sat as rigid as a
stone, but as she listened to her own praises she moved uneasily in her
seat, and once put up her hand deprecatingly as if imploring him to
stop. When at last the services were over, and the curious ones had
taken their last look at the dead, and the undertaker came forward to
close the coffin-lid, her mind, which had been strained to its utmost,
gave way, and not realizing what she did or meant to do, she arose
suddenly, and gliding swiftly past her father, stepped to the side of
the coffin, and throwing back her heavy crape vail; stooped and kissed
the eyelids of her brother, saying as she did so:

"Dear Robbie, can you see me now, and do you know what I am going to
do?"

There was a glitter in her eyes which told that she was half-crazed, and
her father arose to lead her to her seat beside him; but she waved him
back authoritatively, and in a clear, distinct voice, which rang like a
bell through the church, said to the astonished people:

"Wait a little. There is something I must tell you. I have tried to put
it away, but I cannot. My brain is on fire, and will never be cool again
until I confess by Robbie's coffin; then you may judge me as you please.
It will make no difference, for I shall have done my duty and ceased to
live a lie, for my life has been one long series of hypocrisies and
deceit. Our clergyman has described me as a saint, worthy of a martyr's
crown, and some of you believe him, and look upon the care I gave to
Robbie as something unheard-of and wonderful. And I have let you think
so, and felt myself the veriest hypocrite that ever breathed. Don't you
know that what I did was done in expiation of a crime, a horrid, cruel
deed, for I put out Robbie's eyes. I made him blind.

"I knew you would shudder and turn from me in loathing," she continued,
in a louder, clearer tone, as she felt the thrill of surprise which ran
through the assembly, and grew more and more excited, "But it is the
truth, I tell you. I put out those beautiful eyes of which I was so
envious because the people praised them so much. I could not bear it,
and the demon of jealousy had full possession of me, young as I was, and
sometimes, when I saw him preferred to me, I wished him dead, _dead_,
just as he is now. Oh, Robbie, my heart is breaking with agony and
shame, but I must go on. I must tell how I hated you and the pretty baby
ways which made you so attractive, and when I climbed up in the chair
after the lumps of sugar and saw the cup of Cayenne pepper, and you
standing below me with wide-open eyes and outstretched hands, asking me
to give, the devil look possession of me and whispered that now was my
chance to ruin those eyes looking up so eagerly at me. I had heard that
red pepper would make one blind, and--and--oh, horror, how can I tell
the rest?"

Lucy's voice was like a wailing cry of agony, as, covering her white
face with her hands, she went on:

"I held the cup toward Robbie, and said: 'Is it this you want?' and when
in his ignorance he answered: 'Yes, div me some,' I dropped it into his
hands, saying to myself, 'it is not my fault if he gets it in his eyes.'

"You know the rest, how from that moment he never looked on me or any
one again; but you do not, cannot know the anguish and remorse which
filled my soul, when I realized what I had done. From that day to the
hour of Robbie's death there has never been a moment when I would not
have given my sight--yes, my life for his. And that is why I have been
the devoted sister, as you have called me. I was trying to atone, and I
did a little. Robbie told me so, for I confessed it all to him before he
died; I told him just how vile I was, and he forgave me, and loved me
just the same and went to sleep with my name on his lips. I can see it
there now, the formation of the word Lucy, and it will be the first he
utters when he welcomes me to heaven, if I am permitted to enter there.

"I have made this confession because I thought I ought, that you might
not think me better than I am, I know you will despise me, but it does
not matter; Robbie forgave and loved me to the last, and that alone will
keep me from going mad."

She ceased speaking, and with a low, gasping sob fell forward into the
arms of her father, who had stepped to her side in time to receive her.

It was a blustering March day when they buried Robert Grey in the
cemetery at Allington, while his sister, who had been taken directly
from the church to her home, lay unconscious in her room, only moaning
occasionally, and whispering of Robbie, whose eyes she had put out.

"People will hate me always," she said, when after weeks of brain fever
she was herself again. But in this she was mistaken, for the people who
knew her best loved her most, and as the years went on, and all felt the
influence of her pure, stainless, unselfish life, they came to esteem
her as almost a saint, and no house was complete which had not in it
some likeness of the sad, but inexpressibly sweet face which had a smile
for every one, and which was oftenest seen in the cheerless houses where
hunger and sickness were. There Lucy Grey was a ministering angel, and
the good she did could never be told in words, but was known and felt by
those who never breathed a prayer which did not have in it a thought of
her and a wish for her happiness.

When Grey was first laid in her arms, and she saw in his great blue eyes
a look like those other eyes hidden beneath the coffin-lid, she felt as
if Robbie had come back to her, and there awoke within her a love for
the child greater even than his own mother felt for him. And yet, so
wholly unselfish was her nature that she never mourned or uttered a word
of protest when, as the boy grew older, he evinced a preference for the
farm-house in the pasture, rather than for the grand old place at Grey's
Park, where, since her sister's marriage and her father's death, she had
lived alone.

"Hannah needs him more than I do," she would say to herself, but her
sweet face was always brighter, and in her great black eyes there was a
softer light when she knew he was coming to break the monotony of her
lonely life.

After her marriage, Geraldine did not often honor Allington with her
presence. It was far too quiet there to suit her, and Lucy lived too
much the life of a recluse. No little breakfasts, no lunches, no evening
parties at which she could display her elegant Paris costumes; nothing
except now and then a stupid dinner party, to which the rector and his
wife were invited, and that detestable Miss McPherson, who said such
rude things, and told her her complexion was not what it used to be, and
that she looked older than her sister Lucy. Miss McPherson was an
abomination, and going to the country was a bore, but still Geraldine
felt obliged to visit Allington occasionally, and especially on
Thanksgiving day, when it is expected that the sons and daughters of New
England will return to the old home, and grow young again under the
roof which sheltered their childhood.

And so, on the morning when our story properly opens, Mr. and Mrs.
Burton Jerrold and their son Grey, a well grown lad of fourteen, left
their home on Beacon street, and with crowds of other city people took
the train for the country, to keep the festal day.




CHAPTER IV.

THANKSGIVING DAY AT GREY'S PARK.


The season had been unusually warm and pleasant for New England, and
until the morning of Thanksgiving Day the grass upon the lawn at Grey's
Park had been almost as fresh and green as in the May days of spring,
for only the autumnal rains had fallen upon it, and the November wind
had blown as softly as if it had just kissed the wave of some southern
sea, where it is summer always. But with the dawning of Thanksgiving
Day, there was a change, and the carriage which was sent from Grey's
Park to the station to meet the guests from Boston was covered with
snow, and Mrs. Geraldine shivered, and drew her fur-lined cloak more
closely around her as she stepped from the train, and looking ruefully
down at her little French boots, said petulantly:

"Why do they never clear the snow from the platform, I wonder, and how
am I to walk to the carriage? It is positively ankle deep, and I with
silk stockings on!"

Mrs. Geraldine was not in an enviable frame of mind. She had declined an
invitation to a grand dinner party, for the sake of going to Allington,
where it was always snowing or raining or doing something disagreeable,
and her face was anything but pleasant as she stood there in the snow.

A very slave to her opinions and wishes, her husband always thought as
she thought, and fondly agreed with her that going to Allington was a
bore, and that he did not know how she was to wade through all that snow
in thin boots and silk stockings, and not endanger her life by the
exposure.

Only Grey was happy; Grey, grown from the blue-eyed baby boy, who used
to dig his little heels so vigorously into the rotten base-board under
the bench in the wood-shed of the farm house, into the tall, blue-eyed,
open-faced lad of fourteen, of whom it could be truly said that never
had his parents been called upon to blush for a mean or vicious act
committed by him. Faulty he was, of course, with a hot temper when
roused, and a strong, indomitable will, which, however, was seldom
exercised on the wrong side. Honorable, generous, affectionate, and pure
in all his thoughts as a young girl, he was the idol of his aunts and
the pride of his father and mother, the latter of whom he treated with a
teasing playfulness such as he would have shown to a sister, if he had
one.

Mrs. Jerrold was very proud of her bright, handsome boy, and had a
brilliant career marked out for him; Andover first, then Harvard, and
two years or more at Oxford, and then some high-born English wife, for
Mrs. Jerrold was thoroughly European in her tastes, and toadied to the
English in a most disgusting manner.

During her many trips across the water, she had been presented to the
queen, had attended, by invitation, a garden party, and a ball at which
the Prince and Princess of Wales were present, and had spent several
weeks in the country houses of some of the wealthy English.
Consequently, she considered herself quite _au fait_ with their style
and customs, which she never failed to descant upon, greatly to the
amusement of her listeners, and the mortification of Grey, who was now
old enough to see how ridiculous it made his mother appear.

Grey was delighted to go to Allington, and the grandest dinner party in
the world, with all the peers of England as guests, would have been a
small compensation for the good cheer he expected both at Grey's Park,
and at the farm-house. He was glad, too, for the snow and as the express
train sped swiftly on, and he watched it from the window, falling in
blinding sheets and covering all the hill-tops, he thought what fun it
would be on the morrow to drive his Aunt Lucy's bays over to the
farm-house after his Aunt Hannah, whom he would take for a long drive
across the country, and frighten with the rapidity with which the bays
would skim along.

"Hurrah! There's Allington, and there's Tom," he cried, springing up as
the train shot under the bridge near the station. "Come on, mother, I
have your traps, great box, little box, soap-stone, and bag. Here we
are! And, my eyes what a blizzard! It's storming great guns, but here
goes," and the eager boy jumped from the car into the snow, and shook
hands with Tom, his Aunt Lucy's coachman, and the baggage-master, and
the boy from the market where his aunt bought her meat, and Saul
Sullivan, the fiddler, the most shiftless, easy-going fellow in
Allington, who wore one of Grey's discarded hats given to him the
previous year.

"Holloa! holloa! how are you?" he kept repeating, as one after another
pressed up to him, all glad to welcome the city boy who was so popular
among them. Hearing his mother's lamentations over the snow, he said to
the coachman: "Here, Tom, take these traps, while I carry mother to the
carriage." Then, turning to her, he continued; "Now, little mother, it
will never do for those silk stockings to be spoiled, when there is a
great strapping fellow like me to whom you are only a feather's weight,"
and lifting the lady in his arms as if she had really been a child, he
carried her to the carriage, and put her in, tucking the blankets around
her, and carefully brushing the snow from her bonnet. "Now, father, jump
in, and let me shut the door. I'm going on the box with Tom. I like the
snow, and it is not cold. I am going to drive myself." And in spite of
his mother's protestations, Grey mounted to the box, and taking the
reins, started the willing horses at a rapid rate toward Grey's Park,
where Miss Lucy waited for them.

Bounding up the steps, Grey dashed into the hall, and shaking the snow
from his coat and cap, seized his aunt around the waist, and after two
or three hearty kisses, commenced waltzing around the parlor with her,
talking incessantly, and telling her how delighted he was to be at
Grey's Park again.

"Only think, I have not seen you for more than a year, and I've been to
Europe since, and am a traveled young man. Don't you see marks of
foreign culture in me?" and he laughed mischievously, for he knew his
aunt would comprehend his meaning. "Then, too," he continued, "I'm an
Andover chap now, but find it awful poky. I almost wish I had gone to
Easthampton. Such fun as the boys have there! Sent a whole car-load of
gates down to Springfield one night! I'd like to have seen the
Easthamptonites when they found their gates gone, and the Springfielders
when they opened that car. Holloa, mother! Isn't it jolly here? And
don't you smell the mince pies? I am going to eat two pieces!" And the
wild boy waltzed into the library in time to see his mother drop
languidly into an arm-chair, with the air of one who had endured all it
was possible to endure, and who considered herself a martyr.

"Pray be quiet, and come and unfasten my cloak. You forget that your
Aunt Lucy is no longer young, to be whirled round like a top."

"Young or not, she is as pretty as a girl, any day," Grey replied,
releasing his aunt and hastening to his mother.

Knowing her sister's dislike to the country, Miss Grey had spared no
pains to make the house as attractive as possible. There was no furnace,
but there were fires in every grate, and in the wide fire-place in the
large dining-room, where the bay-window looked out upon the hills and
the pretty little pond. Lucy's greenhouse had been stripped of its
flowers, which, in bouquets, and baskets, and bowls, were seen
everywhere, while pots of azaleas, and camellias, and rare lilies stood
in every nook and corner, filling the rooms with a perfume like early
June, when the air is full of sweetness.

But Mrs. Geraldine found the atmosphere stifling, and asked that a
window might be opened, and that Grey would find her smelling-salts
directly, as her head was beginning to ache.

Grey knew it always ached when she was in a crank, as he called her
moods, and he brought her salts, and undid her cloak and bonnet, and
kissed her once or twice, while his father, who was hot because she was
hot, said it was like an August day all over the house, and opened a
window, but shut it almost immediately, for a cloud of snow came
drifting in, and Mrs. Geraldine knew she should get neuralgia in such a
frightful draught.

"Come to your room and lie down. You will feel better when you are
rested," Lucy said, with a troubled look on her sweet face, as she led
the way to the large, cheerful chamber which her sister always occupied
when at Grey's Park.

"What time do you dine?" Geraldine asked, as she caught the savory smell
of something cooking in the kitchen.

"I have fixed the dinner hour at half-past two," Lucy replied, and
Geraldine rejoined:

"Half-past two! What a heathenish hour! and I do so detest early
dinners."

"Yes, I know," Lucy answered, in an apologetic tone, "but Hannah cannot
stay late, on account of her father" then, turning to her
brother-in-law, who had just come in, she added: "You know, I suppose,
that your father has not been as well as usual for several weeks. Hannah
thinks he is failing very fast."

"Yes, she wrote me to that effect," Burton replied, "but she is easily
alarmed, and so I did not attach much importance to it. Do you think him
seriously ill?"

"I don't know except from Hannah herself, as he sees no one. I was there
yesterday, but he would not allow me to enter his room. I am told that
he has taken a fancy that no one shall go into his bedroom but Hannah
and the doctor. That looks as if his mind might be a little unsettled."

Instantly there came back to Burton's mind what his aunt had said to him
on her dying-bed: "There is a secret between them, but never try to
discover it, lest it should affect you, too. There may be disgrace in
it." Years had passed since Burton heard these words, and much good
fortune had come to him. He had married Geraldine Grey, and had become
president of a bank; he had increased in wealth and distinction, until
no one stood higher on the social platform of Boston than he did. He had
been to the Legislature twice and to Congress once, and was the Hon.
Burton Jerrold, respected by every one, and, what to his narrow mind was
better still, he was looked upon as an aristocrat of the bluest type.
None of his friends had ever seen the queer old hermit at the
farm-house, or Hannah either for that matter, for she had seldom been in
Boston since Grey was a baby, and on the rare occasions when she did go
she only passed the day, and had her lunch in the privacy of Mrs.
Geraldine's room. Once or twice a year, as was convenient, Burton had
been to the farm-house to see his father, whom he always found the same
silent, brooding man, with hair as white as snow, and shoulders so bent
that it was difficult to believe he had ever been upright. And so,
gradually, Burton had ceased to wonder at his father's peculiarities and
had forgotten his suspicions; but now they returned to him again, and he
shivered as there swept suddenly over him one of those undefinable
presentiments which sometimes come to us, and for which we cannot
account.

"What time is Hannah coming?" he asked.

"I hardly know," Lucy replied; "the boy who stays here to do the outdoor
work is to bring her as soon as she can leave her father, who will have
no one with him in his room during her absence. He is very anxious to
see Grey, but I doubt if he will even let him into the bedroom."

During this conversation Grey had listened intently, and now he
exclaimed;

"I have it. My dinner will taste better if I see grandpa first, and show
him my Alpenstock, with all those names burned on it. I mean to drive
over after Aunt Hannah myself. It will be such fun to surprise them
both."

"Grey, are you crazy to think of going out in this storm?" Mrs. Jerrold
exclaimed.

But Grey persisted, and, pointing to the window, said:

"It is not snowing half as fast as it did; and look, there's a bit of
blue sky. I can go, can't I, Aunt Lucy?"

"Ye-es, if Tom is willing," Lucy said, a little doubtfully; for she
stood somewhat in awe of Tom, who did not like to harness oftener than
was necessary.

"Pho! I'll risk Tom," Grey said. "Tom knows me;" and in less than ten
minutes one of the bays was harnessed to the cutter, and Grey was
driving along in the direction of the farm-house, which, for the first
time in his life, struck him as something weird-like and dreary,
standing there alone among the rocks, with the snow piled upon the roof
and clinging in masses to the small window-panes. "I don't wonder mother
thinks it seems like some old haunted house we read about. It is just
the spot for a lively ghost. I wish I could see one," he thought, as he
drove into the side-yard, and, giving his horse to the care of the
chore-boy, Sam, who was in the barn, he went stamping into the kitchen.




CHAPTER V.

THE OLD MAN AND THE BOY.


Old Mr. Jerrold had failed rapidly within a few weeks, but as long as
possible he dressed himself every day and sat in his arm-chair in the
kitchen, for the front room was rarely used in winter. At one time, when
Hannah saw how weak her father was growing, and knew that he must soon
take to his bed, she suggested that he should occupy the south room, it
was so much more sunny and cheerful than his sleeping apartment, which
was always dark, and gloomy, and cheerless. But her father said no very
decidedly.

"It has been a part of my punishment to keep watch in that room all
these dreadful years, and I shall stay there till I die. And, Hannah,
when I cannot get up any more, but must lie there all day and all night
long, don't let any one in, not even Miss Grey, for it seems to me there
are mirrors everywhere, and that the walls and floor have tongues, and I
am getting such a coward, Hannah--such a coward, I am too old to confess
it now. God has forgiven me; I am sure of that, and the world need not
know what we have kept so long, you and I. How long is it, Hannah? My
memory fails me, and sometimes it seems a thousand years, I have
suffered so much, and then again it is but yesterday--last night. How
long did you say, Hannah!

"Thirty-one years next Thanksgiving, was Hannah's reply, spoken, oh, so
mournfully low.

"Thirty-one years, and you were a girl of fifteen, and your hair was so
brown and glossy, just like your mother's Hannah--just like hers, and
now it is so grey Poor child! I am so sorry for you, but God knows all
you have borne for me, and some day you will shine as a star in His
crown, while I, if I am permitted to enter the gates, must have the
lowest seat."

It was the last of October when this conversation took place, and the
next day but one the old man did not get up as usual, but staid in bed
all that day, and the next, and the next, until it came to be understood
between himself and Hannah that he would never get up again.

"Shall I send for Burton?" Hannah asked, and he replied:

"No, he does not care to come, and why trouble him sooner than
necessary? He is not like you. He is grand and high, and ashamed of his
old father, but he is my son, and I must see him once more. He will be
up on Thanksgiving Day, and I shall live till then. Don't send for him.
I cannot have him in this room--can't have anybody--don't let them in!
Can no one see under the bed?"

"No, father, no one can see: no one shall come in," Hannah answered.

Then for weeks she kept her lonely watch over the half-crazed old man,
who started at every sound and whispered piteously:

"Don't let them come here, Hannah. I am too old; and there is Grey--the
boy--for his sake, Hannah, we will not let them come for me now!"

"No, father, they shall not come. Grey need not know," Hannah always
replied, though she had secretly cherished a hope that some time in the
future, when the poor old father was dead, she would tell Grey and ask
his help to do what she fully meant to do when her hands, bound for
thirty years, should be loosened from the chain.

She could trust Grey, could tell him everything, and feel sure that his
earnest, truthful blue eyes would took just as lovingly at her as ever,
and that he would comfort and help her as no one else could do.

Such was the state of affairs at the farm-house on the morning of
Thanksgiving Day, when Hannah was making her preparations to go to
Grey's Park for two hours or more, just to sit through the dinner and
see Grey, whom she had not seen since his return from Europe.

Her father was not as well that morning. Thanksgiving was always a
terrible anniversary for him, for as on that day the several members of
a family meet again around the old hearth-stone, so the ghosts of the
past all came back to torture him and fill him with remorse.

"How it blows," he said, as the wind shook the windows of his room, and
went screaming around the corner of the house. "How it blows, and I seem
to hear voices in the storm--your voice, Hannah, as it sounded thirty
years ago, when you cried out so loudly, and I struck you for it, and
beat old Rover, too. Do you remember it?"

"Yes, yes, father, but don't talk of it to-day; try to forget; try to
think only that Grey is here, and that you will see him to-morrow."

"Grey, the boy with the big blue eyes which look so straight at you that
I used sometimes to wonder if he did not see into my heart and know what
I was hiding?" the old man replied. "Grey, the little boy who would sit
on that bench in the woodshed, and kick the floor until I sweat at every
pore with fear, and whom I would not touch till he captured my hands,
and held them in his soft, warm ones, and kissed them, too, my wicked
old hands, kissed by Grey's baby lips. Would he touch them now if he
knew? I used to think if I lived till he was a man I would tell him; and
maybe you will do it after I am dead. He is coming here to-morrow, you
say, and Burton; but Burton isn't like Grey. He is proud and worldly,
and a little hard, I am afraid; but the boy, tell him how I love him;
try to make him understand, and when he comes to-morrow maybe he will
kiss me again. It will be for the last time. I shall never see him more.
But hark, what's that? Don't you hear bells? And there is the stamping
of feet at the door. Go, child, quickly, and not let them in here."

Hannah, too, heard the sound and the opening of the kitchen door, and
hurrying from her father's bedside, she called out, sharply:

"Who is it? Who's there?"

"My name is Norval, on the Grampian hills," was replied, in the
well-remembered voice of Grey, who continued, merrily, as he approached
her: "And you, dear Aunt Hannah, you are the dame with the wonderful
name which forward and backward still reads the same."

He did not attempt to waltz with her, as he had done with Lucy; he had
tried it once, but she went the wrong way, and he told her there was no
more dance in her than in the kitchen tongs. So now he only wound his
arms around her and kissed her many times, and when she sat down in a
chair, he stood over her and smoothed her hair and thought how gray it
had grown within the year. He had no suspicion that there was any secret
sorrow weighing upon her, but he knew that her life was a hard one,
owing to the peculiarities of his grandfather, and now as he looked at
her, he felt a great pity for her, and there was a lump in his throat,
as he stooped to kiss her again and said:

"Poor auntie, you look so tired and pale. Is grandpa so very sick, and
more troublesome than usual?"

Hannah had not cried in years. Indeed it was the effort of her life to
keep her tears back, but now, at the sound of Grey's sympathetic voice
and the touch of his fresh, warm lips upon her own, she broke down
entirely, and for a few moments sobbed as if her heart would break,
while Grey in great concern, knelt down before her, and tried to comfort
her.

"What is it, auntie?" he said. "Is it because you are so lonely, and are
afraid grandpa will die? I'll take care of you then, and we will go to
Europe together, and you shall ride on a mule and cross the
Mer-de-Glace. I used to think when I was over there how we would some
day go together, and I would show you everything."

At the mention of Europe, Hannah's tears ceased, and commanding her
voice, she said, abruptly:

"Did you go to Wales?"

"Yes, we went there first. Don't you remember?"

Without answering that question, Hannah continued:

"Did you go to Carnarvon?"

"Carnarvon! I guess we did. We spent a whole day at the old castle, and
went all over it, and into the room where the first Prince of Wales was
born. It isn't much bigger than our bath-room. But I tell you those old
ruins are grand;" and with all a boy's enthusiasm over his first trip to
Europe, Grey launched out into a graphic description of what, he had
seen and done, repeating everything ridiculous in order to make his Aunt
Hannah laugh.

"You ought to have heard father try to talk French," he said. "It was
enough to kill one with laughing. He bought a little book and would
study some phrase, and then fire it off at the waiters, screaming at the
top of his voice, as if that would make them understand better; and once
it was too funny. We were in a shop in Lucerne, and father wanted to
know the price of something, so he held it up before a little dapper man
with blue eyes and yellow hair, and said, 'Com-bi-on'--that's the way he
pronounced it--'com-bi-on;' but the man didn't com-bi-on worth a cent,
and only stared at him as if he thought him a lunatic. Then father tried
again, and yelled as loud as he could, '_Pree--pree!_ how much-ee,
much-ee?' Then there was a glimmer of a smile on the man's face, and
when father, wholly out of patience, roared out, 'Damnation, are you a
fool?' he replied, 'No, but I'm a Yankee like yourself, and the price of
the carving is twenty-five francs;' and, sure enough, he was a chap from
Maine. After that father always asked them first if they
_parlez-vous-ed_ English. Mother got on better, because she knew more of
the language, and always gave a twist to the words which made them sound
Frenchy; but she was afraid to talk much, for fear she'd make a mistake
and Miss Grundy would laugh at her. She is awfully afraid of Miss
Grundy, especially if the _genus homo_ happens to be English. But I did
not care. I wanted to learn, and I studied in the railway car, and at
the table, and in bed, and had a teacher when we staid long enough in a
place, and then I plunged in, mistake or no mistake, and talked to
everybody. I used to sit on the box with the driver when we drove, so as
to talk to him, and you have no idea what a lot you pick up that way, or
how glad they are to help you; and now, though I do not suppose I always
use good grammar or get the right accent, I can _parlez_ with the best
of them, and can speak German, too, a little. I think I have improved
some; don't you, auntie."

Of course she did, and she told him so, and smiled fondly upon the
bright, handsome boy, knowing that in what he said of himself there was
neither conceit nor vanity, but a frankness and openness which she liked
to see in him.

"And now for grandpa," he suddenly exclaimed, "he will think I am never
coming."

And before she could stop him he had entered the low, dark room, where,
on the bed, pushed close to the side-wall near the woodshed, and just
where it had stood for thirty years, the old man lay, or rather sat, for
he was bolstered upright, with chair and pillows behind him, his long
white hair parted in the middle and combed behind his ears, and his arms
folded across his bosom.

At Grey's abrupt entrance he started, and his face flushed for a moment,
but when he saw who it was, the look of fear gave way to one of joy, and
his pale face lighted up with gladness as he welcomed the eager boy, who
told him first how sorry he was to find him so sick, and then what a
grand time he had in Europe.

"I have been to the top of Rigi, and old Pilatus and Vesuvius, and
Flegere, and crossed the Mer-de-Glace and Tete Noir, and the Simplon,
and they are all here on my Alpenstock; look, see! but no, you cannot,
it is so dark! I'll raise the curtain."

And Grey hastened to the window, while his grandfather cried out in
alarm:

"Stop, Grey, stop. I'll call your Aunt Hannah! Hannah, come here!"

She was at his side in an instant, bending over him while he whispered:

"Is it safe? Can he see nothing, sure?"

"Nothing, father, nothing," was the reply, and thus reassured the old
man took the Alpenstock, which had done such good service, and looked at
the queer names burned upon it, lingering longest upon the first one,

    "Grey Jerrold, Boston, Mass., 18--."

Very rapidly Grey talked of his travels, and the wonders beyond the sea.

"But, after all, America is best," he said, "and I am glad I am an
American. Boston is the place to be born in. Don't you think so,
grandpa?"

"Yes, yes. Did you go to Wales? To Carnarvon?" the old man said, so
abruptly that Grey stopped short and stared at him blankly.

His Aunt Hannah had asked the same question. Could it be they were more
interested in Carnarvon than in Mont Blanc and Vesuvius? If so, he would
confine himself to Carnarvon, and he began again to describe the old
castle, and the birth-room of the first Prince of Wales. Then his
grandfather interrupted him by asking:

"Did you hear of any family there by the name of Rogers?"

"Rogers? No. Why? Did you ever know any one by that name who lived in
Carnarvon?" Grey asked, and his grandfather replied:

"Yes, a great many years ago, longer than you can remember. Joel Rogers,
that was the name, and he had a sister, Elizabeth. You did not hear of
her?"

"Father, father; you are talking too much; you are getting excited and
tired," Hannah interposed in some alarm, but her father replied:

"No. I'm not afraid of Grey, now that I see his face again; it's a face
to be trusted. Grey would not harm his old grandfather. Would you, boy?"
and the childish old man began to cry piteously, while Grey looked
inquiringly at his aunt, and touched his forehead meaningly, as much as
to say:

"I know, I understand; a little out of his head."

She let him think so, and laying his hand on his grandfather's hair,
Grey said:

"Don't cry; of course I would not harm you, the best grandpa in all the
world."

"No, no, Grey; the worst, the worst; and yet it does me good to know you
love and respect me, and you always will when I am dead and gone, won't
you, even if you should ever know how bad I was, and you may sometime,
for it is impressed on me this morning that in some way you will help
Hannah out of it. You two, and no more. Poor Hannah. She has suffered so
much for my sake. Be good to her, Grey, when I am gone; be good to
Hannah. Poor Hannah."

"Yes, grandpa, I will," Grey said, in a tearful voice, as he
involuntarily wound his arms around the woman he was to be good to. "I
will always care for Aunt Hannah, and love her above all women. Don't
you worry about that. She shall live with me when I am a man, and we
will go to Europe together."

"Yes, to Carnarvon, perhaps," Mr. Jerrold interposed, and then said,
suddenly: "Do you remember the day you caught and kissed my old hands,
and did me so much good? Would you mind kissing them again?--this one;
it burns so and aches!" and he raised his thin, right hand, winch Grey
took in his own, and kissed reverently and lovingly, saying as he did
so:

"Poor, tired hand, which has done so much hard work, but never a bad
act."

"Oh, oh! My boy, my boy, you hurt me!" grandpa cried, as he snatched his
hand from Grey, who looked at him wonderingly and said:

"I am sorry. I did not mean to hurt you. Is your hand sore?"

"Sore? Yes, sorer than you know or guess; so sore that it aches down to
my very heart."

"Come, Grey, I think it is time we were off. Father is getting tired and
excited. You will see him again to-morrow," Hannah said, and her father
rejoined:

"To-morrow! Who knows? To-day is all we can call our own, and I will
bless my boy to-day. Kneel down, Grey, and let me put both hands on your
head."

With a feeling of awe Grey knelt beside the bed, while his grandfather
laid his hands on his head and said:

"May God bless my boy Grey, and make him a good man--not like me, the
chief of sinners, but Christlike and pure, so that he may one day reach
the eternal home where I hope to meet him, through the merits of the
blood of Jesus, which cleanseth from all sin--all sin, even mine. God
bless my boy!"

It seemed like a funeral, and Grey's eyes were full of tears as he rose
from his knees and said:

"Good-by, grandpa. We must go now, but I will come again to-morrow, and
stay all day and all the next, for I do not go back to Andover till
Monday, and next summer I will spend all my vacation with you. Good-by;"
and stooping, he kissed the white forehead and quivering lips, around
which a smile of peace was setting.

Then, he left the room, never dreaming that it was good-by forever.

Once in the open air, with his Aunt Hannah by his side, the cloud which
in the sick-room had settled upon him lifted, and he talked and laughed
merrily as they drove swiftly toward Grey's Park where dinner was
waiting for them.




CHAPTER VI.

MISS BETSEY McPHERSON


The table was laid in the large dining-room, which faced the south, and
whose long French windows looked into the terraced flower-garden and
upon the evergreens fashioned after those in the park at Versailles.
When alone, Lucy took all her meals in the pleasant little breakfast
room, where only two pictures hung upon the wall, and both of Robin--one
taken in all his infantile beauty, when he was two years old, and the
other at the age of fourteen, after the lovely blue eyes which smiled so
brightly upon you from the first canvas were darkened forever, and the
eyelids were closed over them. This was Lucy's favorite room, for there
Robin seemed nearer to her. But Geraldine did not like it. It was like
attending a funeral all the time, she said; and so, though it was quite
large enough to accommodate her Thanksgiving guests, Lucy had ordered
the dinner to be served in the larger room, which looked very warm and
cheerful with the crimson hangings at the windows and the bright fire on
the hearth.

After having regaled herself with a glass of sherry, a biscuit, a piece
of sponge cake, and some fruit, Mrs. Geraldine had descended to the
dining-room to see a new rug, of which Lucy told her. Glancing at the
table, which was glittering with china, and glass, and silver, she began
counting:

"One, two, three, four, five, six places. You surely did not expect
Burton's father?"

Lucy flushed a little, as she replied:

"Oh, no; the sixth place is for Miss McPherson."

"Miss McPherson! What possessed you to invite her? I detest her, with
her sharp tongue and prying ways. Why, she is positively rude at times,
and exasperates me so," Geraldine said, angrily; and her sister
rejoined:

"I know she is peculiar and outspoken, but at heart she is true as
steel, and I thought she would be very lonely taking her Thanksgiving
dinner alone. And then she will be glad to see you and inquire after her
brother's family, whom she knows you met abroad."

"Yes, we spent a week with her brother, the Hon. John McPherson, and his
wife Lady Jane, at the house of Captain Smithers in Middlesex. Miss
McPherson is, at least, well connected," Geraldine said, mollified at
once as she recalled her intimacy with Lady Jane McPherson.

To be acquainted with a titled lady was, in her opinion, something to be
proud of, and since her return from Europe she had wearied and disgusted
her friends with her frequent allusions to Lady Jane and her visit to
Penrhyn Park where she had met her. And Miss McPherson was her
sister-in-law, and on that account she must be tolerated and treated, at
least, with a show of friendship. So when she heard that she had arrived
she went to meet her with a good deal of gush and demonstration, which,
however, did not in the least mislead the lady with regard to her real
sentiments, for she and Geraldine had always been at odds, and from the
very nature of things there could be no real sympathy between the
fashionable lady of society, whose life was all a deception, and the
blunt, outspoken woman, who called a spade a spade, and whose rule of
action was, as she expressed it, the naked truth and nothing but the
naked truth. Had she worn false teeth and supposed any one thought them
natural, she would at once have taken them out to show that they were
not; and as to false hair, and frizzes, and powder, and all the many
devices used, as she said, "to build a woman," she abominated them, and
preferred to be just what the Lord had made her, without any attempt to
improve upon his work. Once Lucy Grey had asked her why she did not call
herself Elizabeth, or Lizzie, instead of Betsey, which was so
old-fashioned, and she had retorted, sharply, that though of all names
upon earth she thought Betsey the worst, it was given to her by her
sponsors in baptism, and Betsey she would remain to the day of her
death.

She was tall and angular, with large features, sharp nose, and little
bright, black, bead-like eyes, which seemed to look you through, and
read your most secret thoughts. As her name indicated, she was of Scotch
descent; indeed, her grandfather was Scotch by birth, but he had moved
into England, where her father and mother, and herself were born, so
that she called herself English, though she gloried in her Scotch blood
and her Scotch face, which was unmistakable.

After her birth, her father had bought a place in Bangor, Wales, which
he called Stoneleigh, and there her two brothers, Hugh and John, were
born, and her parents had died.

She had come alone to Allington, when comparatively young, and, settling
down quietly, had for a time watched closely the habits of the people
around her, and posted herself thoroughly with regard to the workings
and institutions of a Republic, and then she adopted them heartily, and
became an out-and-out American, and only lamented that she could not
vote and take part in the politics of the country. Of her past life she
never spoke, and of her family seldom. Her father and mother were dead;
she had two brothers, both well enough in their way, but wholly unlike
each other, she had once told Lucy Grey, whom she had always liked, and
with whom she was more intimate than with any one else in Allington,
unless it were Hannah Jerrold. Although very proud of her family name
and family blood, she was no boaster, and no one in Allington would ever
have known that one of her brothers had been in Parliament, and that his
wife was a Lady Jane Trevellian, if chance had not thrown them in the
way of Mrs. Geraldine.

Once, and once only, had she returned to her native land, and that two
or three years before our story opens. Then she had been absent three or
four months, and when she returned to Allington, she seemed grimmer and
sterner than ever, and more intolerant of everything which did not savor
of the "naked truth." And yet, as Lucy Grey had said of her to her
sister, she was true as steel to her friends, and at heart was one of
the kindest and best of women, and, with the exception of Miss Lucy
Grey, no one in Allington was found so often in the houses of the poor
as she, and though she rebuked sharply when it was necessary, and told
them they were dirty and shiftless when they were, she made her kindness
felt in so many ways that she was, if possible, more popular than Lucy
herself, for, while Lucy only gave them money and sympathy, she helped
them with her hands, and, if necessary, swept their floors, and washed
their faces, and made their beds, and sometimes took their children home
and kept them with her for days.

Such was Miss Betsey McPherson, who, as she is to figure conspicuously
in this story, merits this introduction to the reader, and who, in her
black silk of a dozen years old, with a long, heavy gold chain around
her neck and a cap fashioned after the English style upon her head,
stood up very tall and stiff to receive Mrs. Geraldine, but did not bend
her head when she saw it was that lady's intention to kiss her.

"I know she would as soon kiss a piece of sole-leather as me, and I
would rather kiss a flour-barrel than that powdered face," was her
thought; and so she only gave her hand to Mrs. Jerrold, who told her how
glad she was to see her and how much she was pleased with her brother,
the Hon. John McPherson, and his charming wife, the Lady Jane.

"Why have you never spoken of them to us? I should be proud of such
relatives," she said; and Miss McPherson replied:

"Umph! What's the use? I'm no better, no worse for them."

Just then the sound of bells was heard, and Hannah and Grey came in, and
were received most cordially by Miss McPherson, who unbent to them as
she had not done to the Boston lady. Indeed, there was something even
tender in her voice as she spoke to Hannah and inquired after her
father. Then, turning to Grey, she laid one hand on his head, and taking
his chin in the other, looked searchingly in his face as she said:

"I wonder if you are the same boy I used to like so much, or has a trip
to Europe spoiled you, as it does so many Americans?"

"Not a bit of it," Grey answered, merrily. "Europe is grand; Europe is
beautiful; but she is very old, and I like young America better, with
her freedom and her go-ahead, even if she is not as intensely
respectable, and dignified, as her mother across the water."

The dinner-bell here put an end to the conversation, and Lucy preceded
her guests to the dining-room, followed by her brother, who had been
more than usually affectionate in his greeting to his sister, whom he
took in to dinner, while Grey escorted his mother and Miss McPherson.




CHAPTER VII.

THE DINNER, AT WHICH BESSIE IS INTRODUCED.


The soup and fish had been served, and during the interval while Mr.
Jerrold carved the big turkey which Hannah had contributed, and which
she had fattened all the summer in anticipation of Grey's return and
this very dinner, Mrs. Geraldine took occasion to introduce her favorite
subject of conversation, Europe, and its customs, which she thought so
infinitely superior to those this side the water.

"Umph!" ejaculated Miss McPherson, with an upward toss of the chin.
Then, turning to Grey, she said, "And did you, too, like all the foreign
habits?"

"No, indeed," was Grey's reply. "Just think of having your coffee and
roll brought to you in the morning while you are in bed, and eating it
in the smelling room, without washing your hands, and then going to
sleep again. That is what I call very _narsty_, as the English say,
though they do not use the word in that sense."

"You forget that Miss McPherson is English," Mrs. Jerrold said, and the
lady in question at once rejoined:

"Never mind. I do not believe in spoiling a story for relation's sake,
or country's either, and I fully agree with Grey that the Continental
habit of breakfasting in bed, with unwashed face and hands, is a very
_nasty_ one, in the American sense of the word. I never did it, and
never would."

"You have been on the Continent, then?" Mr. Jerrold asked, and instantly
there came upon Miss McPherson's face an expression of bitter pain, as
if some sad memory had been stirred; then, quickly recovering herself,
she answered:

"Yes, I was at school in Paris a year, and traveled another year all
over Switzerland, Germany, and Italy. It may seem strange to Grey, who
probably cannot realize that I was ever young, to know that I, too, have
my Alpenstock as a voucher for the mountains I have climbed and the
chasms I have crossed. Did you go to Monte-Carlo?"

The question was addressed to Grey, who replied:

"Yes, we were there four days."

"Did you play?"

"No, I did not even see them play. They would not let me in; I was too
young, and I should not have played anyway, for I promised Aunt Lucy I
would not," Grey said, and Miss McPherson replied, with startling
vehemence:

"That's right, my boy! that's right! Never, never play for money so long
as you live. You have no idea what perils lurk around the gaming-table,
or what an accursed spot Monte-Carlo is, beautiful as it is to look at.
Those lovely grounds are haunted with the ghosts of the suicides who,
ruined body and soul, have rushed unprepared into the presence of their
Maker."

None of the guests had ever seen Miss McPherson so excited, and for a
moment there was silence while they gazed at her wonderingly, as she sat
with lips compressed and nostrils dilated, looking intently over their
heads at something they could not see, but which evidently was very
vivid to her.

Mrs. Geraldine was the first to speak, and she said, half laughingly:

"You are quite as much prejudiced against _Rouge et Noir_ as your
brother, for when I told him I tried my luck at Monte-Carlo and won
twenty-five dollars, he seemed horrified, and I think it took him some
hours to regard me with favor again."

"Yes, and he had reason. The McPhersons have all good cause to abhor the
very name of gambling," Miss McPherson replied, hitching her chair a
little further away from Geraldine as from something poisonous; then, in
her characteristic way of suddenly changing the conversation, she said:
"You saw my nephew, Neil McPherson?"

"Oh, yes," Mrs. Jerrold replied. "We saw a good deal of him; he is very
fine-looking, with such gentlemanly manners for a boy. I should be glad
if Grey would imitate him," and she glanced at her son, on whose face a
cloud instantly fell.

Miss McPherson saw it, and turning to him she asked:

"How did you like Neil? Boys are sometimes better judges of each other
than older people. Did you think him very nice?"

Remembering Miss McPherson's love for the _naked truth_, Grey spoke out
boldly.

"No, madam; at first I did not like him at all. We had a fight!"

"A fight!" Miss McPherson repeated, in surprise, as did both Hannah and
Lucy simultaneously, while Mrs. Jerrold interposed:

"I think, Grey, I would not mention that, as it reflects no credit upon
you."

"But he insulted me first," Grey replied, and Miss McPherson insisted:

"Tell it, Grey, and do not omit anything, because I am his aunt. Tell it
exactly as it was. I want the truth."

Thus encouraged, Grey began: "I know I did not do right, but he made me
so angry. It was the Fourth of July and we were at Melrose stopping at
the George Inn, while Mr. McPherson's family were at the Abbey Hotel
close to the old ruin. There were several Americans at our house, and
because of that the proprietor hung out our national flag. It was such a
lovely morning, and when I went into the street and saw the Stars and
Stripes waving in the English wind, I hurrahed with all my might and
threw up my cap in the air.

"'May I ask why you are making so much noise?' somebody said close to
me, and turning round I saw a lad about my own age, wearing a tall
stove-pipe hat, for he was an Eton boy.

"His manner provoked me quite as much as his words, it was so
overbearing, and picking up my cap, I said: 'Why, it's the Fourth of
July, and that is the Star-spangled Banner!'

"'Star-spangled fiddlestick!' he retorted, tapping the ground with the
tip of his boot.' And so you are a Yankee? I heard there was a lot of
them here.'

"'Yes, I'm a Yankee,' I replied; 'a genuine down-easter and proud of it
too, and who, are you?'

"'I? Why, I am Neil McPherson, an Eton boy, and my father is the Hon.
John McPherson, and my mother is Lady Jane McPherson,' he replied, in a
tone intended to annihilate me wholly.

"But I stood my ground, and said:

"'Oh, you are Neil McPherson, are you? and your father is an honorable,
and your mother a lady? Well, I am Grey Jerrold, of Boston, and my
father is an honorable, and my mother is a lady, too!"

"'Now, reely, you make me larf,' he cried. 'Your father may be an
honorable--I believe you have such things--but your mother is not a
lady; there are no ladies in America--born ladies, such as we have in
the United Kingdom. And pray what have you Yankees done, except to make
money, that you should all be so infernally proud of your country and
that rag?' pointing to the flag.

"By this time my blood was up, and I squared up to him, saying:

"'What have we done? We have whipped Johnny Bull just as I am going to
thrash you under that very flag which you were pleased to designate a
rag.'

"He saw I meant business, and bucked off, saying:

"'Oh, but you carn't. I'm the son of Lady Jane McPherson, you know, and
you carn't touch me.'

"'We'll see if I carn't,' I answered, and then I pitched in and thrashed
him till he cried for quarter, and I let him go, threatening all sorts
of vengeance upon me, the worst of which was that he would tell his
mother and have me arrested for assault and battery.

"That was my introduction to Neil McPherson, and I am ashamed of it
now, for I came to like him very much."

During the recital Miss McPherson had laughed until the tears ran down
her cheeks, a thing very unusual to her, while neither Hannah nor Lucy
could repress a smile at Grey's earnestness, but Mr. Jerrold looked very
grave, and his wife annoyed and displeased.

"I am glad to hear you acknowledge that you are ashamed," Mr. Jerrold
said; "for I was very _much_ ashamed that a son of mine should so far
forget himself as to fight a stranger whom he had never seen before.
But, in justice to you, I must add what you have omitted, which is that
you went and apologized to the boy for the affront."

"Did you?" Miss McPherson said, turning to Grey, who replied:

"Yes; and I must say that he received my rather bungling apology better
than I supposed he would.

"'All right,' he said, offering me his hand; 'I dare say I was a cad to
say what I did of your flag, but you needn't have hit me quite so hard.
Where did you learn boxing?'

"'I never learned it,' I told him. 'It was natural to all the Yankees,
who were born with clenched fists, ready to go at it.'

"He believed me, and said 'Reely, is that so?' and then he invited me to
play billiards with him, and we got to be good friends, and he asked all
sorts of questions about America, and said that our girls were the
prettiest in the world when they were young. All the English say that,
and Neil had heard it forty times, so it was not original with him. He
said, however, that pretty as they were, his cousin, Bessie, was far
prettier, that she was a most beautiful little creature, and as sweet as
she was beautiful."

"Bessie!" Miss McPherson exclaimed, with a peculiar ring in her voice,
and a manner of greater interest than she had evinced in Grey's recital
of his encounter with Neil, "Do you mean the daughter of Archibald
McPherson, my nephew, and did you see her? Did you see Archie?"

Grey colored, and replied;

"No, I did not, for mother wished to punish me for fighting Neil, and
so when a Mrs. Smithers asked us to spend a week with the McPhersons at
her home in Middlesex, I was left behind in London with some friends,
but I had great fun. I went to the Tower, and the circus, and the Abbey,
and the museum, and everywhere, though I was sorry not to see Bessie,
who with her father and mother, was also at Captain Smithers'."

"You saw them, then," Miss McPherson continued, addressing herself to
Mrs. Jerrold, "You saw Archie, and his wife and Bessie. What is Archie
like? I never saw him, but I have his wife. She was the daughter of a
milliner, or dressmaker, or ballet-dancer, from Wales, in the vicinity
of Bangor, or Carnarvon, I believe."

"Carnarvon!" Hannah repeated quickly, while a sudden pallor came to her
lips and forehead, but no one noticed it, and Geraldine hesitated a
little, uncertain as to how far she dared to tell the truth and not give
offense.

But she was soon relieved from all uneasiness on that score, by Miss
McPherson, who, noticing her hesitancy, said:

"Don't be afraid to tell me exactly as it is, for were Archie ten times
my nephew, I would rather hear the whole truth just as Grey told it of
Neil. So, then, what did you think of Archie? I have an idea he is a
good-natured, good for nothing, shiftless fellow, who never earned a
penny in his life, and who gets his living from any one who will give it
to him."

She spoke with a great asperity of manner, and then waited for
Geraldine, who replied:

"You have stated the case in much stronger language than I should have
done, but in the main I believe you are right. Mr. Archibald McPherson
is one whom you could not possibly mistake for other than a gentleman.
He is courteous, and kind, and agreeable, but very indolent, I should
say, for he never stands when he can sit, and never sits when he can
recline; indeed, his position is always a lounging one, and he impressed
me as if he were afraid of falling to pieces if he exerted himself."

"Just so, that is what I thought," Miss Betsey said, emphatically. "He
takes it from his father, rather than his mother. She, I believe, had
some energy and snap She was a chorus singer in some opera, and I did
not like the match, though I now believe she was too good for Hugh. And
now for Archie's wife, Daisy they call her. What of her?"

Mrs. Jerrold evidently had no scruples about freeing her mind with
regard to Daisy McPherson, and she answered, promptly:

"I did not like her at all, neither did Lady Jane, and I tried my best
to keep aloof from her, but could not; she is pushing and aggressive and
sweetly unconscious that she is not wanted. And yet she is exceedingly
pretty, with that innocent kind of face and childish, appealing way
which women detest, but which takes with the men," and Mrs. Geraldine
glanced sharply at her husband, who was just then very busy with his
pudding, and pretended not to hear her, while she went on: "She has some
accomplishments, speaks French and German, I believe, perfectly, sings
simple ballads tolerably well, but rolls her eyes frightfully, and is so
conscious of herself that she disgusts you. I should call her a regular
Becky Sharp, always managing to get the best of everything, and, as she
told me herself, always having on her list two or three invitations for
as many weeks, to as many different places."

"But how does she do it?" Miss Betsey asked, and Mrs. Jerrold replied:

"I hardly know, nor do the ladies themselves. Sometimes, as in the case
of Mrs. Smithers, the invitation is genuine and sincere, but oftener it
is a mere form at which Daisy jumps at once, thanking the lady sweetly,
and either asking her to fix a time, or more frequently fixing it
herself to suit her own convenience. She has a most wonderful talent,
too, forgetting presents of clothes and jewelry for herself and Bessie,
and that is the way they live, for they have no means, or, at least,
very little, except what she manages to get from the men by philopoenas,
or bets, or games at cards and chess, where they allow her to win,
because she almost begs them to let her do so. She even got five pounds
from my husband on a wager, which he did not at first think in earnest."

And again the black eyes flashed at Button, who now looked up from the
orange he was peeling and said laughingly:

"Yes, Daisy did me out of twenty-five dollars in the neatest possible
manner, and would have fleeced me out of twenty-five more if I had not
been on my guard against her. She got twenty-five pounds out of Lord
Hardy who was a guest at the Smithers', but he acted as if it were a
pleasure to be cheated by so pretty a woman, and she is the prettiest
woman I ever saw."

"Umph!" Miss Betsey said again, while Geraldine continued:

"Yes, she is pretty, with a pink and white complexion, blue eyes and
golden hair, which curls naturally, and which she still wears hanging
down her back so as to show it to good advantage, and she a woman of
thirty."

"No, Geraldine, you are mistaken," Mr. Jerrold said, quickly. "You
forget that she was married at seventeen, and Bessie is only eight; so,
at the most, Daisy cannot be more than twenty-six."

"I am glad you know her age so well," Mrs. Geraldine retorted, "I think
twenty-six too old to wear one's hair streaming down the back. We were
all disgusted, and especially Lady Jane, whose room was just across the
hall, directly opposite hers. She told me herself that she would never
have accepted Mrs. Smithers' invitation had she known that adventuress
was to be there. And yet she was very kind to little Bessie. Indeed, no
one could look at that child and not love her at once, and pity her,
too, for the influence with which she was surrounded."

"Yes, Bessie--tell me of her," and Miss McPherson leaned forward
eagerly. "They pretend she was named for me. Then why not call her
Betsey, if that is her name?"

"Would you call a child Betsey?" Hannah asked, joining for the first
time in the conversation.

"No, of course not. I think it horrid, but if I was christened Betsey,
no power on earth could turn me into a Bessie; but go on and tell me
about her," and she turned to Mrs. Geraldine, who continued:

"She has her mother's wonderful beauty, with all its refinement of her
father, and such a sweet expression that you feel like kissing her. Her
eyes, like her mother's, are blue, but so clear and dark that at times
they seemed almost black, especially when there came into them as there
often did, a troubled look, when Daisy was relating some of her
adventures, which we knew could not be true. At such times, it was
curious to watch the child as she listened with her great wide-open eyes
and flushed cheeks, while her breath came in short gasps, as if she were
longing to contradict her mother, and this she sometimes did.

"'Mamma, mamma, please,' she would say. 'Haven't you forgotten? Wasn't
it this way?' but a look would silence her, and there would settle upon
her face and about her mouth that patient, sorrowful expression pitiful
to see in one so young."

"And her father, was he fond of her?" Miss McPherson asked, and Mrs.
Jerrold replied:

"Yes, very, and she of him. She seemed to recognize the difference
between him and her mother, and kept by him most of the time. It was a
very pretty sight to see her with her arms around his neck and her
bright head leaning on his arm, while she looked up at him so lovingly
and sympathizingly, too, as they watched the maneuvers of her mother.
Once I heard her say to him, when Daisy was flirting more than usual and
attracting all eyes to her, 'I shall never do like that; but mamma is
very pretty, isn't she?'

"'Yes, darling, very pretty,' he answered, and then they kissed each
other very quietly. I wish you could see Bessie."

It was not often that Geraldine praised anything or anybody as she
praised this little English girl who had made a strong impression upon
her, and of whom she might have said more if Miss McPherson had not
rejoined:

"I did see her once, and her mother, too. I was home three years ago,
you know, and I went to Aberystwyth in Wales, where I heard Archie was
staying, but I did not make myself known to him, I was so disgusted with
what I heard of his wife's conduct, which he allowed without a word of
protest. But I was anxious to see the child, and one morning I sat on a
bench on the Marine Terrace watching a group of children playing near
me. I was almost sure that the one with the blue eyes and bright hair
was Archie's and so I called aloud, 'Betsey McPherson, are you there?'

"Instantly she came to me, and folding her hands in my lap, looked up at
me with her wondering eyes and said:

"'I am Bessie McPherson, not Betsey.'

"'Weren't you christened Betsey?' I asked, and she replied:

"'Yes, but they never call me that. It's a horrid name, mamma says.'

"'Then why did she give it to you?' I said, and she answered with the
utmost gravity:

"'For some old auntie in America who has money; but she never sent me a
thing, nor answered papa's letter. I think she is mean, don't you?'

"I did not tell her what I thought of the old auntie, though I could not
repress a smile at her frankness, which pleased me more than
prevarication would have done.

"'Where is your papa?' I asked, and she replied:

"'At the Queen's Hotel, but it is awful expensive there, and papa says
we can't afford it much longer. But mamma says we must stay till she
finds some place to visit. There she is now, and that is Lord Hardy with
her; they are going over to the old ruins,' and she pointed to a young
woman in the distance, bedizened out in white muslin and blue ribbons,
with her yellow hair hanging down her back, and her big straw hat in her
hand instead of on her head; and she was talking and laughing and
coquetting with a short, spindle-legged chap, not much taller than
herself, and looking with his light curly hair and mustache like a
poodle-dog.

"'Who did you say he was?' I asked, and the child answered me:

"'Lord Hardy, mamma's friend. He is very rich and very nice. He gives me
lots of things, and sometimes buys us all first class tickets, and then
it is so grand. I don't like to go second-class, but, you see, papa is
very poor.'

"'How, then, can he afford to stop at expensive hotels?' I asked, and
she said, while a shadow came over her face:

"'We couldn't if we didn't have one small room on the top floor, where
I sleep on the lounge. I never go to _table d'hote_ but stay in my room
and eat whatever mamma can slip into her pocket without the waiters
seeing her. Sometimes it is not much, and then I am so hungry; but mamma
will get us an invitation to visit somebody soon, and then I can eat all
I want.'"

The guests had listened very attentively to this recital, and none more
so than Grey, who leaned eagerly forward, with quivering lips and
moistened eyes, as he exclaimed:

"Poor little girl, how I wish she had some of my dinner! Why didn't you
bring her home with you, away from her wicked mother?"

Miss McPherson did not reply, for there dawned upon her suddenly a fear
lest she had talked too much, and her manner changed at once, while she
sank into an abstracted mood, and her eyes had in them a far-off look,
as if she were seeing the child who came to her upon the sands of
Aberystwyth and looked into her face with eyes she had never been able
to forget, and which she could now see so plainly, though the little
girl was thousands of miles away.

Dinner being over Hannah said it was time for her to go home, and Lucy
accordingly ordered the sleigh to be brought to the door.

"You will come to-morrow as early as possible," Hannah said to her
brother, who replied:

"Yes, immediately after breakfast, for I must go back to Boston on the
afternoon train, I have an engagement for Saturday."

"So soon?" Hannah said, in a tone of disappointment: "I hoped you would
stay longer; father will be so sorry; he has anticipated your visit so
much."

"It is impossible. I have promised for Saturday, and must keep the
appointment," and Burton Jerrold leisurely scraped and trimmed his thumb
nail, but did not explain that the appointment he must keep was with the
members of his club, who gave a dinner on Saturday.

He knew very well that he could remain in Allington until Saturday
afternoon and then reach home in time for the dinner; but the place was
almost as distasteful to him as to his wife, and he gladly seized upon
any pretext to shorten his stay as much as possible.

"Shall I tell father that you will come with Burton to-morrow?" Hannah
asked her sister, who instantly assumed that air of invalidism which she
found so convenient when anything disagreeable was suggested for her to
do.

Drawing her shawl more closely about her, and glancing with a little
shiver at the window, she replied:

"N-no, I hardly think I shall go out to-morrow, it will be so cold, and
probably stormy; but you may expect me for a little while on Saturday,
if the day is fine."

"But _I_ shall come and stay till Monday, and I hope you have a lot of
mince pies baked up. Last Thanksgiving we were in Paris, and had pea
soup, and brains, and eels, and stewed celery for dinner," Grey said, as
he kissed his aunt and bade her good-by.




CHAPTER VIII.

AFTER THE DINNER.


The carriage which took Hannah home also took Miss McPherson to the door
of her dwelling, a large, old-fashioned New England house, with a wide
hall through the center, and a square room on either side; one the
drawing-room or parlor in which the massive furniture had not been
changed during the twenty years and more that Miss Betsey had lived
there; the other the living room where the lady sat, and ate, and
received her friends and where now a bright fire was burning in the
Franklin stove, and the kettle was singing upon the hob, while a little
round Swiss table was standing on the Persian rug before the fire, and
on it the delicate cup and saucer, and sugar bowl, and creamer, which
Miss McPherson had herself bought at Sevres years ago, when the life she
looked forward to was very different from what had actually come to her.
Possibly the memory of the day when she walked through those brilliant
rooms at Sevres, and bought her costly wares, softened a little her
somewhat harsh, uncompromising nature, for there was a very womanly
expression on her usually severe face as she sipped her favorite oolong,
and gazed dreamily into the fire, where she seemed to see again the
sweet face of the child who had talked to her on the shores of Cardigan
Bay, and whose innocent prattle had by turns amused, and interested, and
enraged her. And, as she gazed she thought:

"Yes, Grey was right. Why didn't I take the little thing in my arms and
bring her home with me? To think of her being hungry, when there is
enough wasted in this house every day to feed her! And why did I so far
forget myself as to talk as I did to-day--I, who am usually so silent
with regard to my affairs! Why need I have told them that Archie's wife
was a trollop. I suppose the venom is still rankling in me for the name
she called me, 'Old Sour Krout!'" and Miss Betsey smiled grimly as she
remembered all, the child upon the terrace had said to her that summer
morning three years ago, "She is truthful, at all events," she
continued, "and I like that, and wish I had her here. She would be a
comfort to me, now that I am old, and the house has no young life in it,
except my cats. There's the bedroom at the end of the hall, opening from
my room. She could have that, and I should be so happy fitting it up for
her. I'd trim it with blue, and have hangings at the bed, and--"

Here she stopped, seized with a sudden inspiration, and summoning the
housemaid, Flora, to her, she said:

"Remove the tea things and bring my writing-desk."

Flora obeyed, and her mistress was soon deep in the construction of a
letter to Archibald McPherson, to whom she made the proposition that he
should bring his daughter Betsey to her, or if he did not care to cross
the ocean himself, that he place her under the charge of some reliable
person who was coming to America and who would see her safely to
Allington, or, that failing, she did not know but she would come herself
for the child, so anxious was she to have her.

    "I shall not try to conceal from you that I have seen her. You know
    that by the result. I did see her on the terrace, and saw your wife,
    too, and I liked the child, and want her for my own, to train as I
    please and to bring up to some useful occupation, so that, if
    necessary, she can earn her own living. There has been too much
    false pride in our family on account of birth and blood. The idea
    that because you are born a gentleman or lady you must not work is
    absurd. Would it not be more honorable to sweep the streets, or
    scour knives and pare potatoes, than to sponge one's living out of
    strangers who despise you in then hearts even when inviting you to
    their houses? We have men, and women too, in America who do not work
    but get their living from others, and we call them tramps, and have
    them arrested as vagrants. But that is neither here nor there. I
    want you to give little Betsey to me, and she, at least, will never
    regret it. But don't let me hope of a fortune influence you, for my
    will was made years ago, and not a McPherson is remembered in it.
    Still, if Betsey pleases me, I may add a codicil and give her a few
    thousands, but don't count upon it, or my death either. We are a
    long-lived race, and I am perfectly strong and well; so, if you let
    me have her, do it because you think it will be better for her,
    morally and spiritually, to be removed from the poisonous atmosphere
    which surrounds her. I liked her face; I liked her voice; I liked
    her frankness. I shall like her; so send her, and I will bear the
    expense; or write and say you can't, and that will close the book.

    "Your aunt, Miss BETSEY McPHERSON. Allington, Mass.

    "P.S. I shall direct this to the old home in Wales, though I have no
    idea you are there, as I hear your wife prefers to be traveling."

The letter finished and directed, Miss Betsey sat a long time gazing
dreamily into the fire and thinking of the past, the present, and the
possible future, when a bright-haired child might be sitting there by
her side and making her life less lonely and aimless than it was now.

Meanwhile the party at Grey's Park had gathered around the fire in the
drawing-room, and Geraldine was repeating to her sister the particulars
of her presentation to the queen, shivering occasionally as she heard
the sleet and snow beating against the window, for with the going down
of the sun the storm had commenced again with redoubled fury, and the
wind howled dismally as it swept past the corners of the house, bearing
with it blinding sheets of snow and rain, and sounding some times like
human sobbing as it died away in the distance.

"Is there some one crying outside, or is it the wind?" Mr. Jerrold
asked, as the sobbing seemed like a wail of anguish, while there crept
over him one of those indefinable presentiments which we have all felt
at times and could not explain; a presentiment in his case of coming
evil, whose shadow was already upon him.

"It is the wind," Grey said. "What an awful storm for Thanksgiving
night!" and rising, he walked to the window just as outside there was
the sound of a fast-coming vehicle, which stopped at the side piazza.

A few moments later the door of the drawing-room opened, and a servant
appeared with a note, which she handed to Mr. Jerrold, saying:

"Sam Powley brought this from your sister. He says your father is very
bad."

Mr. Jerrold was not greatly surprised. It seemed to him he had expected
this, for the sobbing of the wind had sounded to him like his father's
voice calling to him in the storm. Taking the note from the girl, he
tore it open and read:

    "DEAR BROTHER: On my return home I found our father much worse,
    indeed, I have never seen him so bad, and he insists upon your
    coming to him to-night, so I have sent Sam for you, with
    instructions to call on his return for our clergyman, Mr. Sanford,
    as he wishes particularly to see him. Come at once, and _come
    alone_."

    "HANNAH."

The words "come alone" were underscored, and Burton felt intuitively
that the secret he had long suspected and which had shadowed his
father's life, was at last coming to him unsought. He was sure of it,
and knew why Hannah had written "come alone." It meant that Grey must
not come with him, and when the boy who had stood beside him and read
the note with him, exclaimed, "Grandpa is worse; he is going to die; let
us go at once," he said, very decidedly:

"No, my son, not to-night. To-morrow you shall go and stay all day, but
not to-night, in this storm."

Very unwillingly Grey yielded, and saw his father depart without him.

"How is my father? How does he seem?" Mr. Jerrold asked of the boy Sam,
who replied:

"I don't know; I have not seen him. He would not even let me in this
afternoon when Miss Hannah was gone. He locked the door, and I heard him
working at something on the floor by his bed, as if trying to tear up
the plank. He was there when Miss Hannah came home and found him. I
guess he is pretty crazy. But here we are at the minister's, I was to
stop for him, you know. You will have to hold the horse. I sha'n't be
long," and reining up to the gate of the rectory Sam plunged into the
snow, and wading to the door, gave a tremendous peal upon the brass
knocker.

The Rev. Mr. Sanford, who had for many years been rector of the little
church in Allington, was taking his evening tea with his better-half,
Mrs. Martha Sanford, a little, plump, red-faced woman, with light gray
eyes and yellow hair, who ruled her husband with a rod of iron, and
would have ruled his parish if they had not rebelled against her. With
all her faults, however, she took excellent care of her lord and master,
and looked after his health as carefully as she did after his household
interests; and on this particular night, because he had complained of a
slight hoarseness to which he was subject, she had at once enveloped his
throat with folds of red flannel, under which was a slice of salt pork,
her favorite remedy for all troubles of a bronchial nature. And, in his
warmly wadded dressing-gown and padded slippers, the reverend man sat
enjoying his tea and crisp slices of toast, which Mrs. Martha prepared
for him herself, when the sound of the brass knocker startled them both,
and made Mrs. Martha start so suddenly that the slice of bread she was
toasting dropped from the fork upon the hot coals, where it was soon
reduced to ashes.

"Who can be pounding like that on such a night as this?" she asked, as
she hastened to open the hall-door, which admitted such a gust of wind
that she came near shutting it in Sam's face.

But the boy managed to crowd into the hall, and shaking a whole
snow-bank of snow from his cap and coat, he began:

"If you please, ma'am, old Mr. Jerrold is very bad indeed, and Miss
Hannah wants the minister to come right off. Mr. Burton Jerrold is out
in the sleigh, waiting for him, and says he must hurry."

"Mr. Sanford go out such a night as this! It's impossible! He is half
sick now. What does old Mr. Jerrold want?" Mrs. Sanford said, sharply;
and Sam replied, as he shook down another mass of snow upon the carpet:

"Don't know; the Sacrament, mebby, as I guess he's going to die," and
the boy advanced a step or two into the warmly lighted room, where the
rector, who had risen to his feet, was beginning to divest himself of
his dressing-gown.

"Stay back; you have brought snow enough into the hall without spoiling
the parlor carpet, too," Mrs. Martha said, angrily; then, going to her
husband, whose purpose she divined, she continued; "Charles, are you
crazy, to think of going out in this storm?"

"But, my dear," the rector began, meekly, "if the poor old man is
dying--and Hannah would never have sent in such a storm unless she
thought so--if he is dying and desires the comfort of the communion,
shall I refuse it to him because of a little inconvenience to myself?
No, no; I have not so learned Christ. Please bring me my coat, Martha,
and my boots, and the little communion service."

"A pretty time of day to think of that, just as the candle is burned to
the snuff," Mrs. Martha retorted. "Here for years you have exhorted and
entreated him to be confirmed, and he has resisted all your appeals with
the excuse that for him to go to the Lord's table would be a mortal sin;
and now, just at the last, in such a storm, he sends for you. I consider
it an insult to his Creator and to you, too."

"Will you please bring my coat and boots and things? I can never quite
find them myself," was all the rector said, and knowing that further
opposition was useless, Mrs. Martha went in quest of the boots and
overshoes, and coat and overcoat and muffler, and fur cap and mittens,
and heavy shawl, in which she enveloped her husband, lamenting that
there was not ready a hot soap-stone for his feet, which were sure to
suffer.

But the little man did not need the soap-stone; he had the warmest,
kindest, most unselfish heart that ever beat in a human breast, and
never thought of the storm, as he waded through the deep snow and took
his seat beside Burton Jerrold in the sleigh, which Sam drove rapidly
toward the farm-house in the pasture.




CHAPTER IX.

THE HORROR AT THE FARM-HOUSE.


When Hannah reached home the gray November afternoon was already merging
into the dark night, which was made still darker by the violence of the
increasing storm, and never had Hannah's home seemed so desolate and
dreary as it did when the sleigh turned from the highway into the
cross-road which lead to it, and she saw through the gathering gloom the
low, snow-covered roof and the windows from which no welcoming light was
shining. It had been so bright, and cheerful, and warm in the
drawing-room at Grey's Park, and here all was cold, and cheerless, and
dark, as she went into the house with a vague presentiment of the horror
awaiting her.

Entering through the wood-shed she stumbled upon Sam, who was sitting on
a pile of wood, and who said to her:

"I guess your father is mighty bad. I didn't go near him till I heard
him groaning and praying, and taking on so, that I opened the door and
asked if he wanted anything. Then he jumped out of bed and told me to be
gone, spying on him, and he locked the door on me, and I heard him as
if he was under the bed trying to tear up the floor, and I ran out here,
for I was afraid."

"Under the bed!" Hannah repeated, while a cold sweat oozed from every
pore. "He must be crazy! But do not come with me to his room; it would
make him worse. I can manage him alone; but please make a fire in the
summer kitchen and stay there this evening. Father seems to know when
any one is in the next room and it troubles him."

"Yes-m," the boy replied, thinking it a very strange freak that the old
man would allow no one with him except his daughter.

But Sam was neither quick nor suspicious, and glad of any change from
the cold wood-shed, he started to kindle a fire in the room adjoining,
which in summer was used for a kitchen, while Hannah, lighting a candle,
hastened to the door of her father's room, which she found locked, while
from within she heard labored breathing, and a sound like tugging at a
board which evidently offered resistance.

"Father," she cried, in terror, "let me in! It is I, Hannah, and Sam is
in the wood-shed."

After a moment the key was turned and Hannah stepped inside, locking the
door after her.

In the middle of the floor her father stood, with his long white hair
falling around his corpse-like face and his eyes bright with the
excitement of delirium. The bed was moved toward the center of the room
and in the farthest corner a board of the floor had been partially
removed.

"What are you doing?" Hannah asked, advancing quickly to her father.

"Oh, Hannah," the old man said, whimperingly; "I did so want to be sure
that it was there. I dreamed it was gone, that it had never been there,
and it was so real I wanted to see. I thought I'd get done before you
came, but it was so hard. I cannot get the boards up. But you can do it;
go down on your knees and take the floor up just this once. I'll never
ask it again. It was thirty-one years ago to-night, and when it is
thirty-two I shall be dead. Go down, Hannah, I want to know if it is
there still, the horror I have slept over every night for thirty-one
long years."

"No, father," Hannah answered, firmly. "Ask me anything but that. Be
satisfied that it _is_ there. Who should take it away, when no one knows
but ourselves? Get into bed, father; you are shivering with cold."

Like a conquered child the old man obeyed her and crept into bed, while
she drew the blankets around him, and then stooping down in the dark
corner she drove the loosened board to its place, shuddering as she did
so and experiencing a feeling of terror such as she had not felt before
in years. Pushing the bed back to its usual position, she sat down by
her father and tried to quiet him, for he was strangely restless, and
talked of, things which made the blood curdle in her veins.

"Hark!" he exclaimed, as a gust of wind went shrieking past the window.
"What was that, Hannah, that sound like a human cry?"

"It was only the wind. A wild storm is sweeping over the hills
to-night," she said, as she drew a little nearer to him and took his
hand in hers as if to give herself courage, for she, too, fancied there
was in the wailing wind the echo of a cry she never could forget.

"Yes," the old man replied, "just such a storm as shook the house
thirty-one years ago to-night, and above it all I hear Rover's howl and
the awful word you shouted aloud and which the winds caught up and
carried everywhere so that the world is full of it. Do you remember it,
Hannah!"

Did she remember it. Ask rather could she ever forget the awful word
which it seemed to her was written on the very walls and doors of the
house, and on her forehead where all the world might see it!

Ask her if she remembered, when even now, after the lapse of thirty-one
years, she could hear so distinctly the shriek of despair, which, as her
father had said, the winds had caught up and carried over the hills and
far away, where it was still repeating itself over and over again, and
would go on forever until reparation were made, if that were possible
now.

It was always ringing in her ears, just as the stains were on her hands,
where she felt them as she clasped her long thin fingers convulsively
and wondered if she were going mad.

Her father was very quiet now; he was falling asleep, and sinking on
her knees beside the bed, the wretched woman moaned piteously:

"Oh, my Father in heaven, how long must I bear this burden which
to-night presses so heavily? Help me, help me, for I am so weak and sad.
Thou knowest I was innocent, and I have tried so hard to do right. If I
have failed--if I ought to have spoken in spite of the vow, forgive me,
for if my sin is great, great, too, has been my punishment.

"I cannot stay here," she thought, as she rose from her knees. "The room
is full of phantoms which gibber at me from the dark corners, and shout
the word in my ears as I shouted it that awful night when Rover kept me
company. Poor old Rover, lying under the snow. If he were only here I
should not be quite so desolate. I believe that for the first time in my
life I am a coward," and shaking with cold, or fear, or both, Hannah
left her father's room and went into the kitchen, where Sam was stuffing
the stove with wood.

The moment she appeared, however, he withdrew the stick he was crowding
in, and began to close some of the draughts. But she said to him:

"Don't do that, Sam. Let it burn; put on more. I am very cold. And light
a candle, Sam; three candles! It is so dark here, and the wind howls so.
Does it say anything to you, Sam? Any word, I mean?"

Sam had no idea what she meant, nor, indeed, did he think if she meant
any thing, for his wits came slowly. People called him stupid, and this
was his greatest recommendation to Hannah, who could not have had a
bright, quick-seeing boy in her household.

Sam suited her, and his answer to her question was characteristic of
him.

"No, I don't hear nothin' it says, only it screams like a panther in a
fit," and Sam deliberately lighted the three candles, and placed them on
the table, while Hannah drew a hard wooden chair to the stove, and
putting her feet upon the hearth, clasped her hands around her knees,
and sat there till she was thoroughly warm, and her nerves were quieted.

She was not afraid now, and taking one of the candles she went to her
father's room and found him sleeping, with a calm, peaceful expression
on his face, and another look, too, which made her heart stand still a
moment, for she felt intuitively that the black shadow of death had
crept into the room.

Suddenly he awoke, and seeing her standing by him smiled lovingly upon
her, and said:

"Is that you, Hannah? faithful always, but your work is almost done, I
am going home very soon to the dear Saviour. I am sure of it. I know it.
My sins are washed away in His blood; even the stains upon my hands,
which are clean and white now as were Grey's the day he caught and held
me so fast. May God bless the boy and make him a good man, and a comfort
to you, my child, who have been so much to me, the best, most unselfish
of daughters. And something tells me you will be happy when I am gone. I
hope so, I pray so; and now, Hannah, send for Burton. I shall not be
here in the morning, and I must see him once more, and send for Mr.
Sanford, too. I must see him before I die. Burton and the minister, no
one else; not even the boy Grey; he must not come, for, Hannah, I am
going to tell!"

"What, father?" Hannah gasped, and he replied:

"I am going at last to confess the whole to my son and the clergyman. I
must do it. I shall die easier."

"But, father," Hannah cried, in alarm, "reflect a moment. What possible
good can it do to tell Mr. Sanford, or even Burton? It would only give
him unnecessary pain. You have kept it so long, why not let the grave
bury your secret?"

"Because I cannot," the old man answered, "I must tell Burton. I have
always intended to do it at the last, so that he might know what you
have borne. Perhaps he may be kinder, gentler with you. Burton stands
well with men; high in the world, but he is not like you; he would never
have done what you have, and I want him to know that there is a
sacrifice which ennobles one more than all the honors of the world, and
I want Mr. Sanford to know why I could not go forward and ratify my
baptismal vows, as he has so often urged me to do, thinking me obstinate
in my refusal; and I wish to hear him say that he believes I am
forgiven; that Christ will receive me, even me, a--Oh, Hannah, I can not
say that word. I cannot give myself that name. I never have, you know.
It was so sudden, so without forethought, and, could I live my life over
again, I think I should tell at once, and not bury the secret as I did.
But hurry, Hannah. Send Sam. I have but a few hours to live. Tell them
to come quickly, Burton and the minister, not Grey."

So Hannah wrote the note to her brother, and gave it to Sam, who, in a
most unwilling frame of mind, harnessed the horse, and started in the
storm for Grey's Park.

Meanwhile, in anticipation of the coming of the guests, Hannah put her
father's room a little more to rights, lighted another candle, put more
wood in the stove, and then sat down to wait the result, with a heart
which it seemed to her had ceased to beat, so pulseless and dead it lay
in her bosom. She had no fear of anything personally adverse to herself
or her father arising from the telling of the secret kept so many years.
It would be safe with Mr. Sanford, while her proud brother would die a
thousand deaths sooner than reveal it; but, oh, how cruelly he would be
hurt, and how he would shrink from the story, and blame her that she
allowed it to be told, especially to the clergyman--and she might
perhaps prevent that yet. So she made another effort, but her father was
determined.

"I must, I must; I shall die easier, and he will never tell. We have
known him so long. Twenty-five years he has been here, and he took to us
from the first. Do you remember how often he used to come and read to
you on the bench under the apple tree?"

"Yes, father," Hannah answered, with a gasp, and he went on:

"Seeing you two together so much, I used to think he had a liking for
you, and you for him. Did you, Hannah? Were you and the minister ever
engaged?"

"No, father, never," Hannah replied, as she pressed her hands tightly
together, while two great burning tears rolled down her cheeks.

"And yet you were a comely enough lass then," her father rejoined, as if
bent on tormenting her. "You had lost your bright color to be sure, but
there was something very winsome in your face and eyes, and manner; and
he might better have married you than the sharp-eyed, sharp-tongued,
fussy Martha Craig, who, like the Martha of old, is troubled about many
things, and leads the minister a stirred up kind of life."

"Mrs. Sanford is a model housekeeper, and takes good care of her
husband," Hannah said, softly; and then, as she heard the sound of
voices outside, she arose quickly, and went to meet her brother, and the
man who, her father had said, would better have married her than the
"sharp-eyed, sharp-tongued Martha."




CHAPTER X.

THE INTERVIEW.


The rector was full of interest and concern as he stepped into the room,
and when Hannah apologized for sending for him on such a night, he
answered promptly:

"Not at all, not at all. If I can be of any comfort to you or your
father, I should be very sorry not to come. How is he?"

Hannah did not answer him, so intent was she upon studying her brother's
face, which was anything but sympathetic, as he shook the snow from his
overcoat and warmed his hands by the stove. The Hon. Burton Jerrold
liked his comfort and ease, and as he was far from easy or comfortable,
he made his sister feel it by his manner, if not by his words.

"Is father so much worse that you must send for us in this storm?" he
asked, and Hannah replied:

"Yes, he is very bad. He says he is going to die, and I believe it. He
will not last the night out, and of course I must send for you, and he
insisted that Mr. Sanford should come too."

"Yes, certainly; I am glad he did," the clergyman rejoined, thrusting
his hands into his coat-pocket. "He wishes the communion, I dare say,"
and he placed reverently upon the table the little silver service.

Hannah's face flushed as she replied;

"He did not mention that, I do not suppose he thinks he can receive it.
What he wishes is to see you, to talk to you, to--to--"

She hesitated, her brother's countenance was so forbidding, then added,
quickly:

"'He wishes to tell you something which he has kept for years," and her
voice sank to a whisper as she glanced again at her brother.

It was coming, then, the thing he had suspected so long, and which he
never had wished to learn, and Burton Jerrold breathed hard as he said:

"But surely, Hannah, if there are family secrets to be told, I am the
one to hear them, and not a stranger. Mr. Sanford can have no interest
in our affairs."

"I could not help it, brother," Hannah said, mildly. "I tried to
dissuade him, but he would not listen, and Mr. Sanford is not like a
stranger to us."

She turned her dark eyes full of tears upon the clergyman, who gave her
back an answering glance which her brother did not observe, and would
not have comprehended if he had.

"Yes, Hannah," Mr. Sanford said, "you can trust me; be the secret one of
life or death, it is safe with me as with you." And he gave her his hand
by way of affirmation.

And Hannah took the offered hand and held fast to it as a drowning man
holds to a straw, while the tears ran like rain down her pale face.

"Hannah! Burton! Are you there, and the minister? There is no time to
lose," came feebly from the sick-room, and Hannah said:

"He is calling us; go to him, please. I will join you in a minute."

Then she hurried to the summer kitchen, where she found Sam, who thought
his work done, and was removing his boots preparatory to going to bed.

"Wait, Sam," she said. "I am sorry, for I know you are tired and sleepy,
but you must sit up a while longer, and take Mr. Sanford home. I will
bring you an easy-chair in which you can sleep till I want you."

Thus speaking, she brought a large Boston rocker and a pillow for the
tired boy, who, she knew, would soon be fast asleep, with no suspicion
of what was about to transpire in the sick-room to which she next
repaired, closing the door behind her. Her father had both Burton's
hands in his, and was crying like a little child.

"Oh, my son, my son," he said, "if I could undo the past, I should not
have to turn my eyes from my own child in shame, and that I have done
ever since you were a boy, and came from Boston to see us. How old was
he, Hannah? How old was Burton when the terrible thing happened?"

"'Twelve," Hannah answered, and her father went wandering on like one
out of his mind, talking of Burton when he was a boy--of his dead
wife--of Hannah, who had suffered so long, and of the storm, which he
said was like the one which swept the New England hills thirty-one years
ago that very night, when the snow fell so deep that no one came near
the place till Monday.

"Three whole days," he said. "Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and I had time
to hide the dark deed so securely that it has never been suspected."

Burton started quickly, and glanced at his sister with a look of amazed
inquiry. He had thought of forgery, and theft, and embezzlement, but
never of what his father's words might imply, and the cold sweat began
to froze from the palms of his hands while a kind of nightmare crept
over him, and kept him rooted to the spot as his father went on:

"But, oh! what agony of remorse I have endured! The tortures of the lost
are not more intense than my sufferings have been! Think of my meeting
people day after day with the mark of Cain upon my brow, burning there
so hotly that it seemed as if you must all see it, and know my guilt.
How could I join myself to God's people with this sin unconfessed? I
could not, and yet, I feel in my heart that I am forgiven, washed in His
blood as white as snow, so that there is rest for me in Paradise. Still,
I must confess; I must tell you, my son, and you, my minister; but no
one else--not Grey--no, no, not the boy Grey, who loves me so much. His
life must not be shadowed with disgrace. He must not hate me in my
coffin. Oh, Grey! Grey! May God bless the boy and give him every needful
happiness, and make him so good and noble that his life will blot out
the stain upon our name.

"Father!" Burton cried, in a choking voice; "for pity's sake, have done,
and tell me what you mean! The suspense is terrible."

"I mean," and the old man spoke clearly and distinctly--"I mean that,
thirty-one years ago to-night, in the heat of passion, I killed a man in
the kitchen yonder, and buried him under this floor, under my bed, and I
have slept over his grave ever since!"

"A murderer!" dropped from Burton Jerrold's pale lips; and "A murderer!"
was echoed in the next room by lips far whiter than Burton Jerrold's,
and which quivered with mortal pain as the boy Grey started from his
stooping position over the stove and felt that he was dying.

For Grey was there, and had been for the last few minutes, and had heard
the secret which he was not to know.

After his father left Grey's Park, he had sat a few minutes with his
mother and aunt, and then, complaining of a headache, had asked to be
excused, and gone to his room, which was at the head of some stairs
leading down into a narrow hall and out into the side yard. When the boy
entered his chamber, he had no intention of going to the farm-house, but
as he thought of his grandfather dying, and that to-morrow might perhaps
be too late to see him alive, the wish to go there grew stronger and
stronger, until it became an impulse which he could not resist.

"Something tells me I must go," he said; "that it is needful for me to
be there, and go I shall. I am not afraid of the snow. It cannot be more
than a foot on the level. I have waded through more banks than that, and
it is only a mile from here across the fields and through the woods. I
shall not tell any one, but I am going."

And in a few moments Grey had descended the stairs, and unlocking the
outer door, locked it again, and putting the key in his pocket, started
for the farm-house, striking into a cross-road which led across the
fields, and which in summer he used often to take in preference to the
highway. It was a little nearer, and led through grassy lanes, and cool
pinewoods, and pleasant pasture lands, across a stream where he had once
built a dam, and had a little water-wheel which his grandfather made for
him.

The way, however, was anything but pleasant now, with the cold, dark
sky, the tall, leafless trees, and the drifting snow, which he found was
more than a foot deep on the level, except in the woods, where it had
not fallen so thickly. But Grey was young and fearless, and he went on
rapidly, until he reached the knoll from which the house was visible not
far away. It had ceased snowing by this time, and the moon, which was
nearly at its full, was struggling to show itself through a rift in the
gray clouds. The wind, however, was still blowing in wild gusts, and as
it swept past him he, too, fancied it had in it a human sound.

"It is like Aunt Hannah's voice calling to me. I am glad I came, though
I suppose father will scold," he said, as he paused a moment to rest,
and then rapidly descended the knoll to the house.

Entering by the wood-shed door, which was first reached, he went into
the summer kitchen, and passed on into the second kitchen, where a
candle was burning dimly, and where he stopped a moment by the warm
stove. No one heard him, no one knew he was there; but as he stood in
the silence and darkness he heard distinctly his grandfather's voice,
and this was what he heard:

"I must tell you, my son, and you, my minister; but no one else, not
Grey--no, no, not, the boy Grey, who loves me so much. His life must not
be shadowed with disgrace. He must not hate me in my coffin. Oh, Grey!
Grey! May God bless him and give him every needful happiness, and make
him so good and noble that his life will blot out the stain upon our
name."

Here Grey, who stood motionless, heard his father say:

"For pity's sake tell me what you mean; the suspense is terrible."

And then came the awful response, which sounded through the silent room
like the knell to all the boy's future happiness and peace of mind.

"Thirty-one years ago to-night, in the heat of passion I killed a man
in the kitchen yonder, and buried him under this floor, under my bed,
and I have slept on his grave ever since!"

No wonder Grey's face grew white as the face of a corpse, while his
heart throbbed with unutterable pain as he whispered the word his father
had said aloud.

His grandfather, whom he had thought so good, and loved so much, a
murderer! He had killed a man in that very room, perhaps on the spot
where the boy was standing, and Grey recoiled from the place, and looked
down upon the floor, which gave no sign of the tragedy enacted there
thirty-one years ago, and kept hidden ever since.

Like a flash of lightning Grey saw all the past, and understood now what
had been singular in his grandfather's manner and in his Aunt Hannah's,
too; for she had been privy to the deed, and had helped to keep it from
the world, and to Grey this was the bitterest thought of all, the one
which made him sick, and faint and dizzy, as he groped his way to the
door, which he opened and closed cautiously, and then fell heavily upon
his face in the snow, with all consciousness for the moment blotted out.

The chill, however, and the damp revived him almost immediately, and
struggling to his feet he started on his route back to Grey's Park along
the same road he had come, seeing nothing, bearing nothing but that one
word, that name his father had given to his grandfather, and which he,
too, had echoed. Over and over again the winds repeated it until the,
woods seemed full of it, and he said to himself:

"Will it always be so? Shall I never hear anything but that again so
long as I live, and I am so young, only fourteen, and I meant to be a
great and honorable man, and a good one, too. And I can still be that.
God knows I am not to blame. Would he hear me, I wonder, if I should ask
him now to take some of this pain away which fills my heart to
bursting!"

And there, on the pure white snow, in the shadow of the leafless woods,
the heart-broken boy knelt down, and with clasped hands, and the great
tears streaming over his upturned face, asked God to forgive him for his
grandfather's sin, and take the pain away, and help him to be a good
man, if he could never be great and distinguished. And God heard that
prayer made to him in the wintry night, from the depths of the boyish
heart, and a feeling of quiet came over Grey as he resumed his walk.

"I am not to blame," he said, "and people will not think so if they
know, which they never will, for father will not tell, nor Mr. Sanford
either; but I shall always know, and life will never be the same to me
again."

It certainly looked forlorn and dreary enough to him by the time he
reached Grey's Park, and letting himself quietly in, he crept
noiselessly up to his bed, from which he did not rise until late the
next morning, when his Aunt Lucy came herself to call him, and told him
his grandfather was dead.




CHAPTER XI.

AT THE OLD MAN'S BEDSIDE.


When the word "murderer!" dropped from Burton Jerrold's lips, his father
started as if a bullet had pierced his heart, and the hot blood surged
up into his face, as he said:

"Oh, my son, my son, that you should be the first to call me by a name
which even Hannah has never spoken, and she has known it all the time.
She saw me do the deed; she helped me bury it. Poor Hannah!"

"You!" and Burton turned fiercely upon his sister, who stood like a
block of marble and almost as colorless. "You helped. Then you were an
accessory to the crime, and never spoke, never told! No wonder your hair
turned white before its time!"

"Brother! brother!" Hannah cried, as she threw up her hands in an
anguish of entreaty. "You do not know, you cannot guess, or you would
never reproach me thus."

"But I do know that you kept silence, and that I, who thought myself so
honorable and high, am branded with disgrace, am the son of a--"

"Stay!" and the dying man gathered all his remaining strength for the
reproof. "You shall not call me by that name again. You shall not speak
thus to your sister, the noblest woman and the most faithful daughter
God ever gave to the world. I bound her by a solemn oath not to speak,
even had she wished to, which she did not, for I was her father; your
father, too, and I know that in some respects you are not worthy to
touch the hem of her garment. Say, Mr. Sanford," and he turned to the
rector, who had stood looking on, stupefied with what he heard, "did
Hannah do wrong, not to bear witness against me?"

"Hannah never does wrong," the rector said, rousing himself, and going a
step nearer to her he took her cold, clammy hand between his own, and
held it there, while he continued: "Mr. Jerrold, you reproach your
sister for her silence, but consider what her speaking would have done
for you! If you feel it so keenly when only you and I know of it, what
would you have felt had the whole world been made cognizant of the fact?
I do not know the circumstances of your father's crime. Probably there
was great provocation, and that it was done in self-defense, and if so
the gallows would not have been his punishment, though a prison might,
and do you think that as the son of a felon you could have stood where
you do now in the world's estimation? No; instead of reproaches, which I
do not believe spring from a sense of justice, rather thank your sister
who has given all the brightness of her life to shield her father from
punishment and you from disgrace."

The rector spoke more severely than was his wont, for he felt a contempt
for the man whose real character he now understood better than he had
before; but his words had a good effect, for Burton saw the truth there
was in them, and turning to his sister, who was sobbing piteously he
said:

"Forgive me, Hannah, if I seemed unjust. I am so stunned and hurt that I
am not myself, and do not know what I say. I am glad you kept silent; to
have spoken would have been to ruin me; but why, having kept the secret
so long, did you not keep it longer? Why did not father take it with
him to his grave? Surely no good can come from wounding and humiliating
me so cruelly."

"Perhaps not, my son," the old man answered, feebly. "For you it might
have been better if I had never spoken. Possibly it is a morbid fancy,
but I felt that I must confess to my minister. My conscience said so,
and that I must tell you in order that you may be a comfort and help to
Hannah in what she means to do."

"What does she mean to do?" Burton asked, in alarm, and his father
replied:

"Make restitution in some way to the friends of the man I killed, if she
can find them."

"Oh!" and Burton set his teeth firmly together as he thought what danger
there might be in restitution, for that would involve confession, and
that meant disgrace to the Jerrold name. "I shall prevent that if I can;
it is well, after all, that I should know," he thought; then to his
father he said; "Who was the man? Where are his friends? Tell me all
now."

"Yes, I will; but, Hannah, look--I thought I heard some one moving in
the next room, a few minutes ago," the old man said, and going to the
door, Hannah glanced around the empty kitchen which bore no trace of the
white-faced boy who not long before, had left it with an aching heart,
and who at that moment was kneeling in the snow and asking God to
forgive him for his grandfather's sin.

"There is no one there, and Sam is sleeping soundly in the room beyond,"
she said, as she returned to her father's side, and taking her place by
him passed her arm around him and supported and reassured him, while he
told the story of that awful night, a story which the author will tell
in her own words rather than in those of the dying man, who introduced a
great deal of matter irrelevant to the case.




CHAPTER XII.

THE STORY.


Forty years or more before the night of which we write, there had come
to Allington a peddler, whose home was across the sea, in Carnarvon,
Wales. He was a little, cross eyed, red-haired, wiry man, with a blunt,
sharp way of speaking, but was very popular with the citizens of
Allington, to whom he sold such small articles as he could conveniently
carry in a bundle upon his back; needles, pins, thread, pencils,
matches, thimbles, cough lozengers, Brandreth's pills, handkerchiefs,
ribbons, combs, and sometimes Irish laces and Balbriggans formed a part
of his heterogeneous stock, which was varied from time to time to suit
the season, or the wants of his customers.

Very close at a bargain, and very saving of his money, he seldom stopped
at the hotel, but passed the night at the houses of his acquaintances,
who frequently made no charge for his meals or his lodgings. Especially
was this the case at the farm-house where the peddler, whose name was
Joel Rogers, was always welcome, and where he usually staid when in
Allington. Between Peter Jerrold and the peddler there was a strong
friendship, and the two often sat into the small hours of the night,
while the latter told marvelous tales of his wild Welsh country, which
he held above all other lands, and to which, the last time he was seen
in Allington, he said he was about to return.

For three days he remained in the town, selling off the most of his
stock, and then bidding his friends good-by, started late on the
afternoon of Thanksgiving Day for the adjoining town, where a few debts
were owing him, and where he hoped to dispose of the rest of his
merchandise.

As he left the village the snow began to fall heavily and this, perhaps,
was why he decided to stop at the farm-house, which was not upon the
highway, but nearly half a mile from it, upon a cross-road which led
through Peter Jerrold's farm to the town line, and which was seldom
traveled by any one except by Peter Jerrold himself and those who came
to visit him. Thus the house stood in a most lonely, secluded spot, with
only the chimney and the top of the roof visible to the people of the
neighborhood.

Here Peter Jerrold lived with his daughter Hannah, who was now nearly
fifteen, and who had kept his house since her mother's death, which
occurred when she was twelve years old.

Bright, unselfish, and very pretty, Hannah was a general favorite with
the people of Allington and many were the merry-makings and frolics held
at the old farm-house by her young friends. But these were suddenly
brought to an end by a fearful sickness which came upon Hannah, and,
which transformed her from the light-hearted, joyous girl of fifteen,
into a quiet, reserved, white-faced woman, who might have passed for
twenty-five, and whose hair at eighteen was beginning to turn gray. It
was the fever, the people said, and Hannah permitted them to think so,
though she knew that the cause lay behind the fever, and dated from the
awful night when Joel Rogers came into their kitchen, and asked for
shelter from the storm, which was readily granted him.

It was probably his last visit, he said, as it was doubtful if he ever
returned to America, for he meant to settle down and die in Carnarvon,
his old home, where his only sister, Elizabeth, was living. Then he
talked of his money, which, he said, was considerable, and was mostly
invested in some slate quarries in the vicinity of Carnarvon.

For a long time the two men sat before the wood fire, talking of England
and Wales, eating the apples which Hannah brought them from the cellar,
and drinking freely of some wine which Peter had made himself, and which
he brought out in honor of his friend's last visit.

This at last began to take effect, making them loud and noisy, and
inclined to contradict each other, and quarrel generally, and then, as
the peddler was counting out his gold, of which he had several hundred
dollars he turned suddenly to Mr. Jerrold, and said:

"By the way, you have never paid me the five dollars I loaned you when
I was here last winter."

The latter affirmed that he had paid it in the spring, and that Hannah
saw him do it, which was the fact. But the peddler persisted in his
demand, and grew louder and more vociferous in his language, calling
both Peter Jerrold and Hannah liars, and saying he would have his money
if he went to law to get it.

A violent quarrel then ensued, and such epithets as liar, cheat, and
swindler were freely interchanged, and then there was a simultaneous
spring at each other, the chairs were overturned and they were rolling
upon the floor, dealing each other fierce blows and tearing each other's
hair like wild beasts. It was the peddler who struck first, but Peter,
being the stronger of the two, got his antagonist under him, and with a
stick of wood which was lying upon the hearth struck him upon the head,
inflicting a fearful wound from which the blood flowed in torrents,
staining Peter's hands and face as he pushed back his hair, and sobered
him at once. But it was too late, for when Hannah, who, during the
fight, had cowered in the corner with her hands over her eyes, withdrew
them as the struggle ceased, and looked at the white, blood-stained face
over which her father was bending, she knew the man was dead, and with a
cry of horror, ran from the room out into the darkness, where shriek
after shriek of "_Murder! Murder!_" rang out upon the air and was
drowned by the louder scream of the terrible storm which was sweeping
over the hills that Thanksgiving night.

Beside her in the snow crouched the house-dog, Rover, trembling with
fear, and mingling his howling cry of terror with her more awful one of
murder. The dog had been a witness of the fray, keeping close by his
mistress' side, and occasionally uttering a low growl of disapproval as
the blows fell thick and fast, and when at last it was over, and the
dead man lay white and still, with his blood upon the floor, Rover
sprang toward his master with a loud, angry bark and then fled with
Hannah into the storm, where he mingled his cry with hers and added to
the horror of the scene.

"Half-crazed with what he had done, and terrified lest be should be
detected, Peter Jerrold's first idea was of self-preservation from the
law, and the cries he had heard outside filled him with rage and fear.
Staggering to his daughter's side he struck the dog a savage blow, then
taking Hannah roughly by the arm and leading her into the house, he said
to her, fiercely:

"Are you crazy, girl, that you yell out your father's guilt to the
world? You and that brute of a dog, whom I will kill and so have him out
of the way! Here, you Rover, come here!" he said to the dog, who was
standing before Hannah, bristling with anger and growling at intervals,
"Come here while I finish you," and he opened the door of the wood-shed
where he always kept the gun he had carried in the war of 1812.

Divining his intention Hannah stepped between him and Rover, on whose
head she laid her hand protectingly, while she said:

"Father, you will not touch the dog, if you value your own safety, for
if you do, every man in Allington shall know what you have done, before
to-morrow dawns. Isn't it enough that you have killed _him_!" and she
pointed shudderingly to the inanimate form upon the floor.

For a moment Peter Jerrold regarded her with the face of a maniac; then
his expression changed, and with a burst of tears and sobs he fell upon
his knees at her feet, and clasping the hem of her dress abjectly in his
hands, besought her to pity him, to have mercy, and save him from the
gallows, for in the first frenzy of fear he felt it would be his life
they would require if once his guilt were known.

"I cannot die a felon's death. You do not want your poor father hung!
Think of yourself; think of Burton; both so young, to carry such a
disgrace all your lives. I did not mean to kill him; God knows I didn't.
He provoked me so, he hit me first, and I struck harder than I thought,
and he is dead. Oh, what shall I do? What shall I do? I cannot be hung;
you will not betray me. Promise me you will not!"

She had no thought of betraying him, except as she had threatened it in
defense of Rover, who now stood up erect, looking first at her, and then
at her father, as if curious to see how it would end.

"Father, I have no wish to see you hung," Hannah said, while her knees
shook under her at the thought. "I shall not witness against you, if I
can help it. But what will you do? How can you keep it a secret? People
will know, when they see him, that he did not die by fair means."

To her the thought of hiding the crime had not occurred, and a shudder
of horror ran through her frame when her father said:

"People need not know. He was going to Europe. Let them think he has
gone, and we will bury him, you and I, where he will never be found."

"Bury him here? Where? and Hannah's teeth chattered with fright, as she
thought of living all her life in a house which held a buried secret in
the shape of a murdered man.

"Bury him under the floor of my room, over in the corner where the bed
always stands," the father replied so calmly that Hannah looked at him
wonderingly to see if he were utterly void of feeling, that he could
speak so quietly of what filled her with unspeakable dread.

But he was neither callous nor unconcerned. He was merely stunned with
the magnitude and suddenness of his crime, and the natural fear of its
detection. The repentance, the remorse were to come afterward, and be
meted out to him in such measure of bitterness as has seldom fallen to
the lot of man. Regarding his daughter fixedly for a moment, he said in
a hard, reckless kind of way:

"Hannah, there is no use in whimpering now. The deed is done, and cannot
be undone; though, God is my witness, I would give my life in a moment
for the one I have taken, if I could, and I swear to you solemnly that I
wish I had been the one killed rather than the one to kill. But it was
not to be so. I have slain my friend. The world would call it murder, as
you did, and hang me. I cannot be hung. I must hide it, bury it, and you
must help and swear on the Bible not to tell so long as I live. Will you
do it? Answer, quick, and let us get to work, for I am a very coward,
and hear voices in the storm as of people coming to take me. Will you
help me, and will you swear?"

"Oh, father, father," Hannah cried, in an agony of entreaty; "do not ask
me to help! Do not ask me to swear, though I promise not to tell, if I
can avoid it. But if he is missed, if inquiry is made for him, if he is
traced here, and I am questioned, am put upon my oath, I cannot tell a
lie, and maybe they would not hang you when they knew the circumstances.
He was very unreasonable and aggravating, and called us both liars. I
can testify to that. Oh, father, consider a moment! Would it not be
better to go at once, and confess the truth to some one who has
influence. Captain Grey is our friend. Tell him, and ask his advice. Go,
father; now, and leave him where he lies. I shall not be afraid to stay
alone, knowing you are doing right. Go, father."

She was on her knees before him now, clasping his feet, and pleading
piteously. But she might as well have talked to a stone.

"Give himself up to the hangman? Never!" he answered. And she was no
daughter of his to desire his death, as she evidently did. She could
stay there in the corner with her dog, as great a sneak as herself! He
did not wish her services; he could manage alone, he said, angrily, as
he turned from her and entered his room, where she heard him moving out
his bed, and knew that he was taking up a portion of the floor.

Then there came over her a great blackness, and a buzzing in her head
like the sound of many bees in the summer time, and she fell upon her
face, unconscious of everything. How long she lay thus she did not know,
but when she came to herself again there was no light in the room except
that made by the dying fire upon the hearth and Rover was licking her
cold face and hands, and now and then uttering a low whine as if in
token of sympathy. The body was still upon the floor near her, but from
her father's room there came a sound, the import of which she understood
perfectly. Shivering as with a chill, she moaned:

"Oh! how can I bear it? My life will be one long, living death, and I
shall always want to shriek out the dreadful thing which father says I
must keep! Can I? Ought I? And could they hang my father? I do not think
so. They would call it manslaughter, and pardon him, for my sake--for
Burton's."

And here the poor girl groaned bitterly, as she thought of Burton, her
young brother, whom she loved so much, and of whom she was so proud,
and for whom she was so glad that he could live in Boston, amid all the
fine sights of a city, which suited him better than the homely life at
the farm-house. When, after her mother's funeral, her aunt, Mrs.
Wetherby, had offered to take him home with her and bring him up as her
own, Hannah had felt for a time as if she could not let him go and leave
her there alone; but when she thought of all the benefit it would be to
him, and saw how much he wished it, she stifled every selfish feeling,
for his sake, and saw him leave her without a sign of the pain at her
heart, or the unutterable longing she had for his companionship. And
now, as she thought of him, her bitterest pang came from the fact that
if this deed were known, he would suffer all his life from the shame of
it, and, to herself, she said:

"For Burton's sake, I must bear it always, and alone. He must never know
what I know. No one must ever know, and may God forgive me if I am doing
wrong!" And falling upon her knees, with her head upon Rover's neck, the
wretched girl prayed earnestly for grace to know what was right, and
strength to do it.

And He who hears every sincere cry for help, even though His ear may
seem deaf, and the heavens brass, sending back the cry like an unmeaning
sound, gave her the strength needful for the hour, and a feeling of
calmness stole over her, making her quiet, and even fearless of the
stiffened form lying so near her upon the floor.

But when, a few minutes later, her father appeared in the door, with a
candle in his hand, and said to her, "I have done all I can do alone;
you must help me now," the old terror came back, and staggering to her
feet, she asked:

"What do you wish me to do?"

"Help carry him into the next room," her father replied, and then
forgetting Burton, forgetting everything, she burst out again:

"Oh, father, will it not be better to tell the truth, at once? The fact
that you do so will go a long way toward clearing you. The people all
respect you so much, and they know he was quarrelsome and insulting at
times. Think, father, think!"

"I have thought," he answered, "and I tell you I cannot be hanged!"
then going swiftly to his bed-room he came back with a Bible in his
hand, and standing before the white-faced girl, said to her: "I see I
cannot trust you, unless you swear upon this book, never, while I live,
to breathe to any living person what has been done here to-night. When I
am dead do what you like, but swear now, as you hope for heaven, never
to tell!"

And Hannah took the oath which he dictated to her, and kissed the sacred
book which seemed to burn her lips as she did so. She had sworn. She
would keep the vow to the end, and her father knew it, and with this
fear lifted from his mind he became almost cheerful in his manner, as he
explained to her what she was to do.

And Hannah obeyed him, and with limbs which trembled in every joint went
with him to the attic and helped him bring down some boards which had
lain there for years and on which she and Burton had played many an hour
in days gone by. She knew what he was going to do with them, and without
a word held the light while he fashioned the rude coffin in which he
laid the dead man, but not until she had with her own hands reverently
and tenderly washed the blood from the ghastly face and bound about the
wound upon the temple a handkerchief which she found in his pack. Then,
after the body was placed in the box, she took a pillow from her
father's bed, and putting on it a clean covering and placing it under
the peddler's head, folded his hands upon his breast, and kneeling
beside the box bowed her head upon the boards and began the Lord's
Prayer.

It was her burial service for the dead, all she could think of, and for
a moment her father stood staring at her as if stupefied with what he
saw; then his features relaxed, and falling on his knees beside her he
cried out piteously:

"Oh, Father in heaven, forgive, forgive! Thou knowest I did not mean to
do it. Have mercy, have mercy! Blot out my great sin, and if a prayer
for the dead is not wrong, grant that this man, my friend, whom I sent
into eternity with no time for repentance, may be among the saved;
forbid that I should destroy him body and soul. Oh, help me! for the
brand of Cain is upon me, and already my punishment seems greater than I
can bear. If I could give my life for his I would do so gladly, but I
cannot, and I must live on in torment forever and ever, with this
blood-stain on my hands burning like coals of fire. Oh, my heavenly
Father, have mercy! I did not mean to do it."

His head was on the rough coffin and he was sobbing in wild abandonment
of despair, while Hannah, too, knelt beside him, with a face as white as
the dead man's and eyes into which there had come a look of fright and
horror, which would never entirely leave them until her dying day.

In a corner of the room Rover had been lying for the last fifteen or
twenty minutes, eyeing the proceedings warily, and occasionally giving a
growl of disapproval when his master came near him, and when the body
was lifted into the coffin, he uttered a long, deep howl which echoed
through the house like the wail of some troubled spirit, drifting on the
wings of the wind still moaning around the windows and the doors.

"Oh, Rover, Rover, don't!" Hannah cried, going to him, and winding her
arms around his neck, "Be quiet, Rover, or I shall die."

As if he comprehended her meaning the noble brute lay down again, and
resting his head upon his paws, looked on until his master gave way to
his paroxysm of grief. Then he arose, and going up to the prostrate man,
licked his hair and face just as, earlier in the night, he had licked
Hannah's when she lay beside him on the floor. He was only a dog, but
his sympathy was reassuring to the wretched man, who looked up, and with
a faint smile, said to his daughter:

"Rover forgives and pities me. I will take it as a token that God will
do so, too; and now we must finish our work."

As if endued with superhuman strength, Hannah helped her father carry
the body to the grave he had dug, and there they buried it, while her
tears fell like rain, and her father's lips moved with the words:

"Forgive, forgive; I did not mean to kill him."

Everything belonging to the peddler was buried with him, except a
leathern bag in which was the gold he had counted in the evening, and a
small tin box fastened by a padlock, the key of which was found in his
pocket, and his silver watch, which Hannah laid aside with a thought of
the sister Elizabeth, whom he had mentioned with so much affection, and
who, he said, was to be his heir. The money and the watch belonged to
her and must be kept sacredly until the day when Hannah could safely
give them to her, as she fully meant to do. For the rest there was
nothing of any value, and they buried it with him, and filled the grave,
or rather the father filled it, while Hannah held the light, and Rover
looked on curiously.

Then, when all was done, when the floor was nailed down securely, the
bed moved back to its place, the blood-stains washed from the kitchen
floor, and there was nothing left to indicate the awful tragedy which
had been enacted there, the father and daughter sat down with Rover
lying between them, and talked as to how they would face it.




CHAPTER XIII.

FACING IT.


On the table beside them lay the watch, the leathern bag, and the box
which had belonged to the deceased. In the bag there were several
hundred dollars in twenty, ten, and five dollar gold pieces, and in the
box, which Hannah unlocked, there were some papers, and tied together
with a faded ribbon was a lock of dark brown hair, a bit of purple
heather, a few English violets, and some leaves of ivy; while on the
paper in which they were wrapped was the date of a summer day, many,
many years ago, when the dead man was young. Whatever might have been
the romance of which this souvenir was the sign, it was buried forever
with the past, and Hannah put it back in the box as carefully and
tenderly as if it were the hand of the woman on whose head that brown
tress once grew.

The next thing which met the view was a picture painted on ivory of a
young girl who might have been sixteen or eighteen years of age, and
whose face was so beautiful that Hannah uttered an exclamation of
surprise as she held it to the light and examined it closely.

The dress was old-fashioned, and such as would indicate that the wearer
belonged to the middle, rather than the wealthy class, but Hannah did
not think of that, so absorbed was she in the beauty of the fresh, young
face, and the expression of the large blue eyes, which seemed to look at
her so intently. The dark brown tress, so carefully wrapped in paper,
and bearing the scent of English violets and heather blossoms could
never have grown on this girl's head, for the wavy hair which fell in
such masses upon her neck was of that peculiar shade of gold, dashed
with red, seldom seen in America, and which latterly has become so
fashionable, that where nature fails to produce it, art has been called
into requisition, and achieved most wonderful success.

"Oh, how lovely she is," Hannah said, showing the picture to her father.
"This must be his sister, the Elizabeth he was so fond of. He said once
she was many year's younger than himself, and very beautiful. I do not
wonder he loved her."

The bundle of papers was next examined, and found to contain a few
receipts for moneys paid in England and America, and the will of the
deceased, executed some months before, and in which he gave everything
he possessed to his beloved and only sister, Elizabeth, her heirs and
assigns forever.

"Father!" Hannah said, with a trembling voice, as she finished reading
aloud this will, "I am sure that this is his sister's picture, and we
have a duty to do. We must find Elizabeth Rogers, and put her in
possession of her own, this gold in the box, and whatever else he may
have owned in Wales. He spoke of shares in some mines or quarries. These
all belong to his sister, and we must not defraud her; those blue eyes
would haunt me forever. What shall we do?"

She was looking earnestly at her father, over whose face there came a
sudden pallor, and a hard, bitter expression, as he answered her:

"Find her! Of course! Advertise! go to Wales, if necessary, in search of
her, or get a lawyer to do it! Break your vow; tell the whole truth, as
you would have to, in order to establish his death; and get me hanged!
That would be the result of restitution."

"Oh, father," Hannah cried in terror. "Is there no other way? If I find
this woman and give her her own, must I tell her the whole truth? Will
it not be enough if I say he is dead, that I saw him die, that I helped
to lay him in his coffin? I would not mention you, or that I had a
father. Surely she would be satisfied."

"Yes, _she_ might, but not the law. I do not understand the ins and outs
myself, there are so many questions necessary to make a thing legal, but
this I am sure of; the whole thing would be ripped up, and I hanged, as
I told you. No, Hannah, you cannot find this woman while I live, which,
please God, may not be long. When I am gone, find her, if you like, but
you must shield me. Remember your vow, and--and--swear again, not to
move in the matter while I live."

He was growing so excited with this new fear that his daughter shrank
from him in alarm, and at last yielding to his importunities took
another oath of secrecy, which doomed the blue-eyed woman in Wales to a
life of poverty, if such now were her portion.

"But what shall we do with this money?" Hannah asked.

And her father replied:

"Keep it until you can restore it to its rightful owner without harm to
me. Elizabeth may never get it, but her heirs, some child yet unborn,
may be made rich by you, one day, who knows?"

Yes, some child then unborn might one day be richer for this crime, but
that did not comfort Hannah, now, and the future held no gleam of hope
or happiness for her, as she put the papers, and the watch, and the
gold, and the portrait, together in the tin box, and tried to think
where she could hide them.

Owing to the storm, and the depth of the snow, no one visited the lonely
farm-house until the Monday following the tragedy, when a neighbor came
breaking through the drifts to see how it fared with Peter, who tried to
appear natural as he talked of the depth of the snow, and inquired for
the news, and mentally anathematized the dog Rover, who, the moment the
stranger appeared, stretched himself before the bedroom door with a
keen, watchful look in his eyes, as if he were on the alert and guarding
the terrible secret.

And this habit, commenced that morning, was continued by the faithful
creature up to the day of his death, which happened several years later.
No matter where he was, whether chasing a rabbit through the woods or
sleeping by the stable door, he seemed by some instinct to know when a
visitor arrived, and hastened at once to his post, from which neither
threats nor persuasions could dislodge him. For Hannah tried both, but
when she coaxed he whined and whisked his big tail on the floor, and
when she threatened he growled and showed his teeth, but staid there
just the same.

The Monday night following the tragedy, Hannah was stricken down with a
low, nervous fever, which lasted for weeks, and from which she arose the
mere shadow of her former self. All life and vivacity had left her, and
instead of a girl of fifteen she seemed like a woman of twenty-five, so
quiet and reserved she became, with no color in her cheeks, no
elasticity in her step, no joy in her voice, no brightness anywhere
except in her large dark eyes, which shone with unusual brilliancy, and
had in them always a look which puzzled and fascinated her friends, who
little dreamed of what those strangely bright, beautiful eyes saw
constantly before them.

Whether sleeping or waking the picture was always there, of the dead man
on the floor with the blood-stains on his face, and she felt the touch
of the clammy hands which she had folded upon his breast. She could not
go to school again, for in her morbid state of mind to study was
impossible, and so she staid at home, brooding over the past and
shrinking from the future, with no companionship except that of Rover,
who seemed so fully to understand and sympathize with her. Oftentimes
when her work for the day was done, and she sat down listlessly upon a
little seat beneath the apple tree which grew in the yard, the dog would
go to her, and putting his head in her lap, gaze into her face with such
a human look of pity in his eyes that her tears would fall like rain, as
she wound her arms around his neck and sobbed:

"Oh, dear old Rover, you know, and you are sorry for me. What should I
do without you! What shall I do when you are gone?" and the white lips
would frame a prayer that Rover might be spared to her long, for without
him life would be intolerable.

And yet Hannah had no foolish fancies, filled though the house was, with
the image of the dead man. She did not believe in ghosts, and had no
fear that the occupant of the hidden grave beneath the floor would come
back to trouble her; it was rather the horror of the crime, the sin,
which so oppressed her, filling her with the wildest fancies, and making
her see always the dreadful word murder written everywhere upon the
walls, and the blood-stains on the floor, where no trace was visible to
other eyes than hers. Sometimes in the dark night, in her lonely bed
beneath the roof, with the stars looking in upon her, she felt as if her
brain were on fire and that she was going mad with the load of anguish
and guilt, for she accused herself as equally guilty with her father,
inasmuch as she had witnessed the deed and was helping him to conceal
it.

"But God knows I cannot help it. I am bound with bonds I cannot break,"
she would cry, as she stretched her hands toward heaven in dumb
supplication for pardon and peace, which came at last to the troubled
spirit.

And though she never knew again the joy of youth which had left her
forever, there came to her long intervals of rest and quiet and
comparative peace, if not happiness; and when, three years after the
tragedy which had blighted her young life, she, with others of her
companions, ratified her baptismal vows and openly confessed Christ, He
who sees and knows the secrets of all hearts, knew that among those who
knelt to receive the rite of confirmation there was not one purer or
more sincere than she who thought herself the vilest of the vile.

Naturally, as time rolled on, and the peddler Rogers came no more to
Allington, inquiries were made for him, the people wondering if he
intended remaining in Wales the remainder of his life, or would he
appear in their midst again some day, with his balbriggans and Irish
linens. But as he had never been more to the citizens than a peddler of
dry-goods, he was soon forgotten, and Peter Jerrold's secret was safe
under the floor, and the tin box, with the gold and the will, was safe
in the niche of the huge chimney, where Hannah had hidden it, until
such time as it could be given into the hands of the rightful owner. For
this Hannah fully intended doing. How, or when, or by what agency, she
could not tell, but sometime in the future, restitution would be made,
either to Elizabeth or her heirs. She had calculated the interest on the
money, and resolved yearly to lay by that amount for the benefit of the
Rogers heirs. Everything pertaining to Carnarvon she read up, knowing
perfectly its history, where it was situated, how to reach it, and
almost fancying that she knew the very house where the peddler had
lived, and where possibly Elizabeth was still living. And some day she
would find the place and give up the money and will, and tell as much of
the past as was necessary to tell, but no more.

And with this end in view she lived her dreary, monotonous life, which
knew no change, except on the rare intervals when her young brother
Burton, came up from Boston to spend a few days with the father and
sister from whom he was growing estranged so fast; for between them and
himself there was nothing common, and he was always glad when his short
visit was over, and he was free to return to the life more in accordance
with his taste than that at the farm-house.

When Rover died, several years after the tragedy of which he was a
witness, Hannah felt that she had lost all that made life endurable, and
mourned for him as for a human friend. With all the faithful sagacity of
his race the noble brute had clung to her, seldom quitting her side, and
frequently, when her heart was saddest, and she was weeping by herself,
licking her face and hair, and uttering a kind of low cry, as if he
understood her perfectly; and when at last he died, it was with his head
in her lap, and her tears falling upon his shaggy face. Even to the last
he was faithful to the charge he had so long assumed. A neighbor had
come into the kitchen, and dragging himself from the mat on which he was
lying, Rover crawled to the door of the bedroom, and stretched himself
in front of it, while in the dying eyes lifted to Hannah's face, there
was an expression of unutterable love and regret for the mistress he was
leaving forever. When the visitor left the house, Hannah tried to coax
the dog back to his mat near the stove, but he was too weak to move, and
so she placed a blanket under him and kneeling by his side, put his head
in her lap, and held it there until he ceased to breathe.

After his death there was nothing to relieve the tedium of Hannah's
life, and but for her trust in God her reason must have given way under
the strain, for it was not only her own sorrow, but her father's as
well, which she had to bear. With him there was no rest, day or night,
and every breath was a prayer for mercy and forgiveness.

At first he was continually haunted with a fear of detection, and
frequently in the night he would steal noiselessly to Hannah's room, and
awakening her with a whisper, tell her there were men about the house,
come to arrest him, and charge her with having broken her oath and
betrayed him into the hands of the law. Every possible precaution
against a surprise was taken. Iron bolts were put on the doors, the
windows were nailed down, and the house was never for an hour left
alone. The people said the man was deranged, and pitied the young girl
who, from daily association with him, was becoming almost as peculiar as
himself.

After a few years the aged pastor, who had so long officiated in the
stone church on the common, died, and the Rev. Charles Sanford, fresh
from the Theological Seminary, was called to take his place. Full of
energy and zeal in his work, the young rector soon made himself
acquainted with all his parishioners, and seemed to find a peculiar
attraction in the inmates of the farm-house, where he spent a great deal
of time, arguing with the father on the nature of the unpardonable sin,
and answering the many questions his host propounded to him upon the
subject of genuine repentance and its fruits, and how far confession to
man was necessary that one might be saved.

To these discourses Hannah was always an attentive listener, and there
came gradually a new light into her dark eyes, and a faint color to her
white cheeks, when she saw the rector coming up the walk, and met his
winning smile. But all this was ended at last; for, after a night in
June, when she walked with the young clergyman through the pasture land
under the row of chestnut trees which grew upon the hill-side, he came
less frequently to the farm-house, and when he did come his discourse
was mostly with her father, whom he was laboring to convince that it was
his duty to be confirmed. But Peter always answered him:

"No, you don't know what you ask. I am too vile, too great a sinner for
that. The very stones would cry out against me."

The clergyman thought him crazy, and after a time abandoned the effort,
and went but seldom to the farm-house, where Hannah had again entered
the dark cloud in which his coming had made a rift, and which now seemed
darker than ever, because of the momentary brightness which had been
thrown upon it. She, too, had labored with her father as Mr. Sanford had
done, telling him of the peace which was sure to follow a duty
performed, but he answered her:

"Never, child, never; for, don't you see, I must first confess, and that
is to put the halter around my own neck. They would hang me now, sure,
for the concealment, if for nothing more. It might have been better if I
had told at first, as you advised. I believe now they would have been
lenient toward me. A few years in prison, perhaps, and then freedom the
rest of my life. Oh, if I had done it. But now it is forever too late.
God may forgive me. I think he will, but I can never join his church
with this crime on my soul."

After this Hannah said no more to him upon the subject, but bent all her
energies to soothe and rid him of the morbid, half-crazy fancies which
had taken possession of him.

And so the wretched years went on, until Peter Jerrold had numbered more
than three score years and ten, and suffered enough to atone many times
for crimes far more heinous than his had been. But nature at last could
endure no more, and on the Thanksgiving night, thirty-one years after
the event which had blighted his life, he felt that he was dying, and
insisted upon confessing his sin not only to his son, but also to his
clergyman, who has been his friend and spiritual adviser for so many
years.

"I shall die so much easier," he said to Hannah, who sent for them both,
and then with her arm around her father, held him against her bosom,
while he told in substance, and with frequent pauses for breath, the
story we have narrated.




CHAPTER XIV.

THE EFFECT OF THE STORY.


After the first great shock of surprise, when the word murderer dropped
from his lips, and he reproached his sister so harshly and unreasonably,
Burton Jerrold stood with folded arms, and a gloomy, unsympathetic face,
as immovable at first as if he had been a stone, and listened to the
tale as repeated by his father. But when the tragic part was reached,
and he saw the dead man on the floor, his sister crouching in the corner
of the room, with Rover at her side, the rude coffin, the open grave,
and the secret midnight burial, his breath came in long, shuddering
gasps, and the perspiration stood in great drops upon his forehead and
about his pallid lips. And when his father said, "I buried him here in
this room, under this bed, where I have slept ever since, and he is
there now," he started backward as suddenly as if the ghost of the
peddler had risen from the floor and confronted him. Then, staggering
forward, he would have fallen if Mr. Sanford had not caught him by the
arm and supported him a moment.

Bringing him a chair, the clergyman said to him, pityingly:

"Sit down, Mr. Jerrold, and try to compose yourself. You are not in
fault: no one can blame you."

"No, no, I know it; but it hurts me just the same. The disgrace! I can
never be happy again. Oh, Hannah, why did you let him tell me? I cannot
bear it, I cannot!" the wretched Burton moaned, and his father replied:

"Your sister has borne it for thirty-one years. Are you less brave than
she?"

"I don't know. Yes, I believe I am. I have more at stake than she. Our
positions are not the same. There is Geraldine, and Grey, I can never
look them in the face again, knowing what I know," Burton cried,
impetuously, and covering his face with his hands, he sobbed as strong
men never sob, save when some terrible storm, which they feel themselves
inadequate to meet, is beating pitilessly upon them.

"Oh, brother," Hannah said, in her soft, entreating voice, "this is
worse than all the rest. Don't take it so hard. It is not so bad as you
think. You will not be disgraced. Geraldine will never know: the world
will never know. Char--Mr. Sanford is just as safe as I. He will never
tell," and the dark eyes looked for one moment at the man whom, in her
excitement and forgetfulness, she had almost called by his Christian
name, and who, in response to the call and the look, went to her side,
and laying his hand upon her head, said, solemnly:

"As heaven is my witness, what I have heard here to-night shall never
pass my lips."

Pressing his hand for an instant upon Hannah's bowed head, he withdrew
it, but staid at her side until the recital was ended, and the old man,
who was sinking fast, said to him, in a faint whisper:

"You know all now, and why I could not join the church. It was too late
to tell the world of my guilt. God knew it. I believe he has baptized me
with His Holy Spirit. Do you think that as His minister you can pray for
my departing soul?"

"Yes, yes," the clergyman replied, and falling upon his knees, for he
saw in the pinched face the look he could not mistake, he began the
prayer for the dying one, who whispered, faintly:

"That is good, very good. And now, Hannah, the Lord's Prayer once more;
it is the last. We have said it many times together, you and I, when the
night was blackest and we could think of nothing else. Where are you,
Hannah?" he added, in a tone of alarm, as if he had lost her. "It is
growing dark and I cannot see. You must not leave me now. We have kept
together so long."

"I am here, father; with my arm around your neck, and I am kissing your
dear face," Hannah said, and then, bending over him, she commenced the
prayer they had so often said together when no other words would come.

Faintly the old man's voice joined hers and that of the clergyman, and
only Burton was silent. He could not pray, but sat silent, while his
father whispered at short intervals:

"Forgive; yes, that's the good word, and I am forgiven. I feel it. I
know it. Salvation is sure, even for me, and in heaven I shall wait and
watch for you, Hannah, the best and truest daughter a man ever had. Oh,
God bless my Hannah, and grant that some joy, some happiness may come to
her when I am gone; and Grey, the baby Grey, oh, bless him, too, with
every needful blessing--the baby Grey, whose little hands took the
stain, the smart from mine--my Grey, whom I love so much."

"And Burton, too!" Hannah suggested, as her father ceased speaking
without mentioning his son.

"Yes," he replied, rousing a little. "And Burton, my son; God bless him.
But he is not like you, Hannah, nor like Grey. He could not forgive as
you have; he will never forgive me. And yet he is very just, very good,
very respectable, and the Hon. Burton Jerrold, of Boston. Tell him
good-by and God bless him from me, the murderer!"

Those were the last words he ever spoke, for though he lingered for some
hours it was in a kind of stupor, from which they could not rouse him.

Seeing that he could be of no further service, and remembering the
careful Martha, who, he knew, was sitting up for him, armed with
reproaches for the lateness of the hour, and various medicines as
preventives for the cold he was sure to have taken, Mr. Sanford
signified his intention to return home, and insisted that the boy Sam
should not be awakened to drive him there.

The storm had ceased, the moon had come out, and he greatly preferred
the walk, he said, even if the snow were deep. There were curious
thoughts crowding in the brain of the grave, quiet man, tumultuous
thoughts, which spanned a score of years and brought with them keen joy
as well as a bitter pain. He was standing before the kitchen fire, with
Hannah near him, holding the warm muffler he was to tie around his
neck. Regarding her fixedly for a moment, he said, addressing her by the
old pet name which had once been so familiar to him:

"Hanny, that is why you said 'no' to me that summer night when we walked
together under the chestnut trees, and I felt that you had broken my
heart?"

Any one who saw Hannah Jerrold at that moment would have called her
beautiful, with the sudden light which shone in her dark eyes, the
bright color which, came to her cheeks, and the softness which spread
itself all over her upturned face, as she answered, promptly, and still
very modestly:

"Yes, Charlie, that was the reason."

For an instant these two, whom a cruel fate had separated, looked into
each other's eyes with a look in which the love of twenty years was
embodied; then involuntarily the hands clasped, and the man and the
woman who had walked together under the chestnut trees twenty years ago,
kissed each other for the first time in their lives, _she_ feeling that
on her part there was nothing unwomanly, nothing wrong in the act, and
_he_ feeling that on his part there was not the shadow of infidelity to
the woman who bore his name and looked so carefully after his welfare.
The one was his wife, whom he respected greatly, and to whose wishes he
sacrificed every wish of his own, when he could conscientiously do so;
the other was the woman he had loved in the long ago, and whose "no,"
spoken so decidedly, and with no explanation except that it must be, had
sent him from her with a heart-ache from which he now knew he had never
fully recovered.

Twelve years after that summer, the memory of which was still half joy,
half pain, he had married Miss Martha Adams, of Cambridge, because a
mutual friend had told him he ought to do so, that a bachelor clergyman
was never as useful as a married one, and that Miss Martha, a maiden
lady of thirty-five, was eminently fitted to fulfill the duties of a
rector's wife, for she came from a long line of clergy and for years had
run the Sunday-school, and the sewing society, and the church generally
in the parish to which she belonged. Added to this she had some money
and excellent health, two good things in a minister's wife as everybody
knew.

Mr. Sanford promised his friend to think about it, and then, one
afternoon, walked across the fields to the house among the rocks and
looked again at Hannah, who was twelve years older and graver and
quieter than when she won the love of his young manhood; but there was
something inexpressibly sweet in the pale, sad face, and the large dark
eyes thrilled him as they did of old, so that he found his longing for
her greater, if possible, than ever. But when he said to her, "Hanny,
have you ever regretted your answer to me?" and she replied, "No,
never," he turned away, and, walking back across the fields to his own
home, wrote to his friend in Walpole, signifying his readiness to be
introduced to Miss Martha Adams. The result of this was that Martha had
been his wife for nearly eight years, and ruled him with a rod of iron,
which she, however, sometimes covered, so that he did not feel it quite
so much as he might otherwise have done. But it pressed heavily now, as
in the clear, cold night he walked slowly home through the deep,
untrodden snow, which he scarcely minded, so intent were his thoughts
upon the past and what might have been.

Alas! for the many hearts, aching in secret and sending backward vain
regrets for what might have been, what should have been, but what can
never be. And, if sometimes the heart thus wrung cries out with a great
cry for the happiness it has missed, is there disloyalty to him or her
who stands where another should have stood? God only knows, and He is
far more merciful and ready to forgive his erring children than are they
to forgive each other. And he must have pitied the man who, with a
thought of Hannah thrilling every fiber of his heart, went back to the
home where Martha was waiting impatiently for him, with words of chiding
upon her lips.

He knew it would be so, knew she would sit up for him until morning, if
necessary, and knew, too, that in all probability bowls of herb tea and
a hot foot-bath awaited him, for Martha was careful of his health, and
sometimes oppressive with her attentions, and he sighed as he drew near
his home and saw the light, and thought, "Oh, if she would only go to
bed and leave me alone awhile, and not make me talk."

But she was up and waiting for him, in her purple flannel dressing-gown,
which did not improve her ruddy complexion, and a frown on her face,
which deepened into a scowl as he came in and she saw the condition of
his boots and the lower part of his pants.

"Charles Sanford," she began, "do you mean to say you walked, and do you
know what time it is?"

"Yes, Martha," he answered, meekly, "it is very late, but I could not
help it, and I insisted upon walking rather than have the tired,
sleeping boy come out in the cold. I needed the exercise. I am not
cold."

"But you _have_ taken cold. You needn't tell me, and I've got the water
ready for a foot-bath, and some hot boneset tea. How did you leave Mr.
Jerrold? and did he take the sacrament at last?" she said, and he
replied:

"No, he did not; he--"

But before he could say more she burst out with growing irritability:

"Not take it! Why then did he send for you on such a night, and why did
you stay so long?"

She was pouring the boiling water into the foot-tub, in which she had
put a preparation of mustard and prickly ash and red pepper, which she
kept on hand for extreme cases like this, and the odor of the steam made
him sick and faint, as, grasping the mantel, he replied:

"He wished me to pray with him; he will not live till morning. Please
don't talk to me any more. I am more tired than I thought, and something
makes me very sick."

He was as white as ashes, and with all her better, softer nature roused,
for Martha was at heart a very good woman, she helped him to a chair,
and bathed his head in alcohol, and rubbed his hands, and did not
question him again. But she made him swallow the herb tea, and she kept
on talking herself, wondering what Hannah would do after her father was
gone. Would she stay there alone, or live with her brother? Most likely
the former, as Mrs. Jerrold would never have her in her family, and
really, one could not blame her, Hannah was so peculiar and queer. Pity
was that she had never married; an old maid was always in the way.

And then Mrs. Martha, as if bent on torturing her husband, to whom every
word was a stab, wondered if any man ever had wanted Hannah Jerrold for
his wife, and asked her husband if he had ever heard of any such thing.

"I should not be likely to know it," he replied, "for until you came, I
never heard any gossip."

There was an implied rebuke in this answer, and it silenced Mrs. Martha,
who said no more of Hannah, but as soon as possible got her lord to bed,
with a soapstone at his feet and a blanket wrapped around him, in order
to make him sweat and break up the cold she was certain he had taken.

Meanwhile at the farm-house Burton and his sister were standing together
near the kitchen fire, where poor Grey had stood two hours before, and
heard what changed the coloring of his whole life. They were speaking of
him, and what they said was this:

"If it were only myself I might bear it," Burton said, "though life can
never be to me again what it has been, and I shall think like Cain that
the sin is branded on me; and I was so proud, and stood so high, and
meant to make the name of Jerrold so honorable a name that Grey and his
children would rejoice that they bore it. Of course Grey will never
know, but I shall, and that will make a difference. Hannah," he added,
quickly, struck by something in her face, "what did you mean, or rather
what did father mean by your making restitution to the peddler's
friends? What is there to restore?"

In his recital of his crime the old man had omitted to speak of the
money and the will, or, at most, he had touched so lightly upon them
that it had escaped the notice of his son, whose mind was wholly
absorbed in one idea, and that of the body buried under the floor within
a few feet of him. Hannah explained to him what her father meant, and
told him of the box and the gold, to which she had every year added the
interest--compound interest, too--so that the amount had more than
quadrupled, and she had found it necessary to have another and larger
box in which to keep the treasure.

"That is why I have so often asked you to change bills into gold for
me," she said. "Paper might depreciate in value, or the banks go down,
but gold is gold everywhere, and I have tried so hard to earn or save
the interest, denying myself many things which I should have enjoyed as
well as most women, and getting for myself the reputation of closeness
and even stinginess, which I did not deserve. I had to be economical
with myself to meet my payments, which increased as the years went on,
until they are so large that sometimes I have not been able to put the
whole in the box at the end of the year, and I am behindhand now, but I
keep an exact account, and shall make it up in time."

"But, Hannah, I used to give you money willingly, and would have given
you more if you had asked for it. I had no idea of this," Burton said,
and she replied:

"Yes, I know you would, but I did not like to do it, for fear you would
think me extravagant and wonder what I did with so much. Not a penny you
gave us ever went into the box. That was my matter, not yours; and I
have worked so hard to do it, for father was not able to look after the
farm, which of itself is poor and barren, and as he was only willing to
hire a boy, I have done a man's work myself at times."

"You, Hannah--you?" Burton said, gazing at the pale-faced, frail-looking
woman, who had done the work of a man rather than ask money of him who
sometimes spent more on one large party than she did in a whole year,
and who said to him, with a sad smile:

"Yes; I have spaded the garden, and planted the corn in the field back
of the hill, where no one could see me, and have helped Sam get in the
hay, though I never attempted to mow; but I did lay up a bit of stone
wall which had tumbled down, I have done what I could."

Poor Hannah! No wonder that her hands, once so small and shapely, were
broad, and hard, and rough, and not much like Mrs. Geraldine's, on which
there were diamonds enough to more than liquidate the debt due to
Elizabeth Rogers and her heirs; and no wonder that her dress, which so
often offended her brother's artistic and critical eye, was coarse, and
plain, and selected with a view to durability rather than comeliness.
She had done what she could, and what few women would have done, and
Burton knew it, and was conscious of a great feeling of respect and
pity, if not affection, for her, as she stood before him in a stooping
posture, with her toil-worn hands clasped together as if asking his
pardon for having intruded her own joyless life upon his notice. But
above every other feeling in his heart was the horrible fear of
exposure if she attempted restitution, and he said to her at last:

"I am sorry for you, Hannah, and I can understand how, with your extreme
conscientiousness, you believed it your duty to do as you have done. But
this must go no further. To discover Elizabeth Rogers is to confess
ourselves the children of a murderer, and this I cannot allow. You have
no right to visit father's sin upon Grey, who would be sure to find it
out if you stirred in the matter. He is sensitive, very, and proud of
his name. It would kill him to know what we do."

"No, brother, it would hurt him, but not kill him." Hannah said, with
energy; "and ever since he was a little child I have depended upon him
to comfort me, to help me, as I knew he would when he was older; and
something tells me he will find the heirs. I do not mean to tell him
until he is a man, able to understand."

"Hannah!" and there was fierce anger in the voice. "You are not my
sister if you ever dare tell Grey this thing, or hint it to him in any
way. He must never know it, both for his own sake and mine. I could not
even look at him without shame if he knew what my father was. You have
kept it thirty-one years; keep it thirty-one longer, and, as you vowed
secrecy to my father, so swear to me solemnly, as you hope for Heaven,
never to tell Grey or any one."

He had seized her wrist, and held it so tightly that she winced with
pain as she cried out:

"Oh, Burton, I cannot; I must restore the money and the will."

"Stuff and nonsense!" he repeated, growing more and more excited. "That
woman is dead before this, and her heirs, if she had any, scattered to
the winds. People never miss what they never had, and they will not miss
this paltry sum. Promise me, that you will drop this insane idea of
restitution and never reveal what you know, even after Geraldine and I
are dead, should you outlive us both. Think of the disgrace to the
Greys."

And so, worried, and worn, and half crazed with fatigue and excitement,
Hannah bound herself again, and, had not Grey already known the secret,
Elizabeth Rogers' heirs would never have heard of the tin box in the
chimney, from which place Hannah brought it at last to show the contents
to her brother, who, perfectly sure that she would keep her word, could
calmly examine the will and scan the features of the young girl upon the
ivory.

"She is very lovely," he said, "though evidently she belongs to the
working class; her dress indicates as much. But whoever she is or was,
she is not like this now; she is old or dead. Put it back in the box,
Hannah, and if ever you accidentally find to a certainty where the
original is, or her heirs, send the will and the money to her from
Boston or New York, and she will thus get her own without knowing where
it came from."

This was rather a lame way to make restitution, but Hannah seized upon
it as something feasible, and felt in a measure comforted. She would
herself go to Europe some time, and hunt up the Rogers heirs so
cautiously that no suspicion could attach to her, and then, having found
them, she would send them the will and the money she was hoarding for
them. This was a ray of hope amid the darkness--the straw to which she
clung; and the future did not seem quite so cheerless, even when, a few
hours later, she stood with her brother by the side of her dead father,
who had died without a struggle or sigh, just as the chill morning was
breaking in the east and giving promise of a fairer day than the
previous one had been.




CHAPTER XV.

GREY AND THE SECRET.


Breakfast was waiting in the pleasant dining-room at Grey's Park, where
Burton Jerrold sat before the fire, with his head bent down and his face
so white and ghastly that his wife, when she came in and saw him, was
moved with a great pity for him, though she wondered much that his
sorrow should be so acute for the father he had never seemed very fond
of in life. Stooping over him she kissed him softly, and said:

"I am sorry you feel so badly, Burton. Your father was old, and quite
ready to die; surely that should comfort you a little."

"Yes, yes, I know; but please don't talk to me now," he replied, with a
gesture of the hand as if to silence her.

He was not sorry for his father's death, but he was willing, nay glad,
that she should think so, for he could not tell her of the load of shame
from which he should never be free.

"What would she say if she knew?" he asked himself, as he remembered all
her pride of blood, and birth, and family. And Grey, his only boy, of
whom he was so proud, and who, he fully expected, would some day fill
one of the highest posts in the land;--what would he say if he knew his
father was the son of a murderer? Burton would not soften the crime even
in thought, though he knew that had his father been arrested at the
time, he could only have been convicted of manslaughter, and possibly
not of that. But he called it by the hard name murder, and shuddered as
he thought of Grey.

"But he never will know," he said to himself, "Hannah will keep her
promise, and I do not fear Mr. Sanford, though I'd give half my
fortune--yes, all--if he had not been told. Grey will never know. But
_I_ know, and must meet his innocent eyes, and hear him talk of his
grandfather as of saint."

It was at this point in his soliloquy that Grey came slowly in, his face
whiter than his father's, with dark rings around his eyes, which were
heavy and swollen with the tears he had shed. Grey had not slept at all,
for the dreadful words, "I killed a man, and buried him under my bed,"
were continually ringing in his ears, while the ghost of the murdered
man seemed present with him, urging him to vengeance for the wrong,
until at last, when he could bear it no longer, he stretched his hands
out into the darkness, and cried:

"What is it you want with me? I am not to blame, but if there is any
thing I can do to make it right, I'll do it, when I am man. Now, go away
and do not torment me so."

Grey knew there was nothing there, knew that the spirits of the
departed do not come back again, but he was not in a frame of mind to
reason clearly upon anything. He only knew how wretched he was, and that
after his promise to redress the dead man's wrongs he grew calmer and
more quiet, though there was still the terrible pain and disappointment
in his heart, especially when he thought of his Aunt Hannah, whom he had
held so high, and whom he now felt he had loved and revered more than
any other person.

Remembering all the past, which at times had puzzled him, and which he
now understood, he was certain that she had known from the first, and so
was an accomplice. Possibly the law would not touch her, he reasoned, as
he tried to fancy what might have been had this thing been known to the
public; but he remembered having heard of a case which happened in an
adjoining town many years before, where, at the instigation of his wife,
a man was killed and thrown into his own well. The wife was hung in
Worcester with her three accomplices, but a woman who was in the house
at the time went free, though she was ever after known as "Old 'Scape
Gallows," and shunned accordingly. Was his Aunt Hannah like her? Would
people thus call her, if they knew?

"No, no; oh, no," he cried in agony. "She is not like that! Please God,
grant that my Aunt Hannah is a good woman still. I cannot lose faith in
her, and I love her so much."

And thus the dreadful night wore to an end, and the morning found Grey
burning with fever, while a sharp pain, like a knife, cut through his
temples every time he moved. He was not surprised when Lucy came and
told him his grandfather was dead. He expected it, but with a moan he
buried his face in his pillow, and sobbed:

"Oh, grandpa, where are you now, I wonder; and I thought you so good, so
sure of Heaven. Please, God, have mercy on him. Oh, I can not bear it. I
cannot bear to think that he is lost! And he loved me so, and blessed me
on his death-bed."

This was the burden of Grey's grief, for he did not stop to consider all
the years of sincere repentance which had purified the soul just gone,
and made it fit for heaven, and his heart was very sore as he slowly
dressed himself and went down to the breakfast-room to meet his father,
who knew what he did, and who must feel it just as keenly.

Grey's first impulse was to fall upon his neck and cry out:

"I know it. I heard it. I was there. We will bear it together," but when
he remembered that his grandfather had said: "that he was not to know,"
he restrained himself, and said very quietly:

"Grandpa is dead. Aunt Lucy told me. When is the funeral?"

The voice was not like Grey's, and Mr. Jerrold looked up quickly to meet
the eyes which fell at once as did his own. Neither could look in the
other's face with that secret which each knew and was hiding from the
other. But both were outwardly calm, and the breakfast passed quietly,
with no reference to the recent event occupying the minds of all. Mrs.
Jerrold and her sister had expected that Grey would feel his loss keenly
and possibly be noisy in his boyish demonstrations of grief, but they
were not prepared for the torpor which seemed to have settled upon him,
and which kept him indoors all day sitting by the fire over which he
shivered as if in a chill, though his cheeks were crimson, and he
sometimes wiped the drops of sweat from his lips and forehead. His head
was still aching terribly, and he was cold and faint, and this was a
sufficient reason for his declining to accompany his Aunt Lucy, when,
after breakfast was over, she went with his father to the farm-house,
where she spent nearly the entire day, seeing to the many little things
necessary for the funeral, and which Hannah could not attend to.

Geraldine did not go. Her nerves were not equal to it and she should
only be in the way, she said. So she sent her love to Hannah and
remained at home with Grey, who seldom spoke to her, and scarcely
stirred, though occasionally his mother saw his lips move and great
tears roll down his cheeks.

"I supposed he would care, but not so much as this," she thought, as she
watched him anxiously, wondering at the strength of his love for an old
man in whom she had never even felt interested.

Once, moved with pity for him, she put her hand on his head, just as in
the morning she had put it on her husband's, and stooping, kissed him
tenderly, saying:

"I am sorry for you, Grey. It is really making you sick. Try and not
feel so badly. Your grandfather was old and ready to die. You would not
have him back, he is so happy now."

Just as his father had done when she tried to comfort him, so Grey did.
He made a gesture for her to stop, and said piteously:

"Please don't talk to me now, I cannot bear it;" so she sat down again
beside him, while he continued to nurse the bitter thoughts crowding so
fast upon him:

Was his grandfather happy now? Was it well with him in the world to
which he had gone? he kept asking himself over and over again all that
dreary day and the drearier night which followed, and which left him
whiter, sadder, if possible, than ever.

The funeral was appointed for half past two on Saturday afternoon, and
Burton, who went over in the morning, asked Grey to go with him.

"Your Aunt Hannah will expect you. She was disappointed in not seeing
you yesterday," but Grey said promptly:

"No, I'll wait, and go with mother."

So Mr. Jerrold went alone with Lucy, leaving his wife and Grey to join
him about half past one, just before the neighbors began to assemble.
When Grey came in, Hannah, who was already draped in her mourning robe
which Lucy had provided for her, went up to him, and putting her arms
around him, said, very low and gently, but with no sadness in the tone:

"Oh, Grey, I am so glad you have come and sorry you are suffering so
from headache, but I know just how you loved him and how he loved
you--better than anything else in the world. Will you come with me and
see him now? He looks so calm and peaceful and happy, just as you never
saw him look."

"Oh, no, no!" Grey cried, wrenching himself from her. "I cannot see him;
don't ask me, please."

"Not see your grandfather who loved you so much? Oh, Grey!" Hannah
exclaimed, with both wonder and reproach in her voice. "I want you to
remember him as he looks now, so different from what he was in life."

"But I cannot," Grey said, "I never saw any one dead; I cannot bear it,"
and going from her he took a seat in the kitchen as far as possible from
the bedroom which held so much horror for him.

He knew his grandfather was not there, for he was lying in his coffin in
the front room, where Lucy Grey had put the flowers brought from the
conservatory at Grey's Park. But the _other one_ was there, under the
floor where he had lain for thirty-one years, and Grey was thinking of
_him_, wondering who he was and if no inquiries had ever been made for
him. The room was a haunted place for him, and he was glad the door was
closed, and once, when Lucy went into it for something, he started us if
to keep her back. Then remembering that he must never be supposed to
know the secret of that room, he sank again into his chair in the
corner, where he staid until the people began to assemble, when he went
with his mother into the adjoining room, where the coffin was and where
he sat immovable as a stone through the service, which, was not very
long. The hymn, which had been selected by Hannah, was the one
commencing with, "Asleep in Jesus, that blest sleep, from which none
ever wake to weep," and as the mournful music filled the rooms, and the
words came distinctly to Grey's ears, he started as if struck a blow,
while to himself he said:

"_Is_ he asleep in Jesus? If I only knew! Can no one tell me? Poor
grandpa!"

Then he was quiet again, and listened intently to what Mr. Sanford was
saying of the deceased. Contrary to his usual custom, the rector spoke
of the dead man, who had gone down to the grave like a sheaf of grain
fully ripe and meet for the kingdom of Heaven.

"There can be no mistake," he said, "I was with him a few hours before
he died. I heard his words of contrition for sins committed and his
assurance that all was peace and joy and brightness beyond the tomb. His
sins, of which he repented as few ever have, were all washed away in
Jesus' blood, and while to-day we stand around his grave, he is safe
with the Savior he loved and trusted to the end."

What else he said, Grey did not know, for the sudden reaction in his
feelings. Mr. Sanford was with his grandfather at the last. He had heard
the dreadful words, "I killed a man!" and yet he declared the sinner
saved. He must know, he who had stood by so many death-beds.

"Yes, he is asleep in Jesus," Grey whispered, while over him there stole
a feeling of deep joy, mingled with remorse that he had ever doubted the
goodness of his grandfather, who had prayed for and blessed him on the
Thanksgiving Day which seemed so long ago.

Grey could look upon him now, and when his Aunt Hannah and his father
rose to take their leave of the corpse, he went with them, lingering by
the coffin after they had returned to their seats, and bending over the
white, still face, where death had left a smile, so peaceful, so
inexpressibly sweet that it touched the boy keenly, and stooping down he
kissed the stiffened lips, and murmured, through his tears:

"Dear grandpa, forgive me for doubting you, I know you were good. I know
you are in heaven."

He spoke in a whisper and no one heard what he said, though all noted
the pallor of his face and the heavy rings about his eyes, and when the
next day it was rumored in town that he was very sick, no one was
surprised. It was brain fever, induced by the strain upon his mental
powers, and the cold he had taken that night when, unknown to any one,
he had gone to the farm-house through the storm, and returned again.

For three weeks he lay at the very gates of death, watched and cared for
as few boys have ever been cared for and watched, for he was the idol of
hearts which would break if he were to die. The farm-house was shut up,
and Hannah took her post as chief nurse to the boy she loved so much,
and whose condition puzzled her a little. Once, in the first days of his
illness, when, after an absence of an hour or so, she re-entered the
room, where his father was keeping watch, he lifted his bright,
fever-stricken eyes to her face, and asked:

"Who was the man?"

"What man?" Hannah and her brother asked, simultaneously, a great fear
in the heart of each lest the other had betrayed what Grey was not to
know.

"Have you told him?" Burton whispered to his sister, who answered:

"You know I have not." Then, turning to Grey, who was still looking at
her, she said to him again: "What man?"

For a moment the wild, bright eyes regarded her fixedly; then there
seemed to come over the boy a gleam of reason, and he replied:

"I don't know."

After that he never mentioned the man again, or in any way alluded to
the secret weighing so heavily upon the two who watched him so
constantly--Hannah and his father. Not a word ever passed between them
either on the subject, so anxious were they for the life of the lad, who
in his delirium talked constantly of the past, of Europe, and the ship,
and the mountains he had climbed, and whose names were on his
Alpenstock. Again he was at Carnarvon, going over the old castle, and
again at Melrose, fighting on the fourth of July with Neil McPherson,
who had said his mother was not a lady. Then there were quieter moods,
when he talked of and to little Bessie McPherson, whom he had never
seen, but who came to him in his delirium, and, with her sunny blue eyes
and golden hair, hovered around his bed, while he questioned her of the
little room high up in the hotel, where she went without her dinner so
often, while her heartless mother dined luxuriantly.

"Send for her and bring her here, where she can have enough to eat. Why
don't you send for Bessie?" he would say to them; and once he said it to
Miss McPherson, who was standing by his bedside, and who replied:

"I have sent for her; she is coming."

"All right!" he answered. "Stuff her when she comes. Give her all the
mince pie she can eat, and all the griddle cakes. She never saw any at
home."

After that he was more quiet; but every morning and evening he asked,
"Has Bessie come?" and when told, "Not yet," he would reply, "Send her
to me when she comes; I want to see her."

And so the time went on until the fever spent itself, and there came a
morning when Grey awoke to perfect consciousness of the present and a
vague remembrance of the past. They told him how long he had been sick,
and how anxious they had been.

"Did I talk much?" he asked his Aunt Lucy, when she was alone with him.

"Yes, most of the time," she replied, and over his face there flitted a
shadow of fear lest he had talked of things he ought not.

"What did I say?" he asked; and she told him as nearly as she could
remember.

"And Aunt Hannah was here all the time? Where is she now?" he inquired;
and Lucy replied:

She went home last night, for the first time in two weeks. She had to
go, as the snow had drifted under the eaves, and the house was leaking
badly."

"Is she there alone?" Grey asked, with a shudder, as he thought of that
hidden grave under the floor.

"No, Sam is there, and I sent Sarah with her," was Lucy's answer, and
after a moment Grey continued:

"Wasn't Mr. Sanford here once; in the room, I mean?"

"Yes, many times," Lucy replied. "He prayed for you here two or three
times, and in the church every Sunday."

"Send for him. I want to see him. Send now," Grey said, adding, as he
saw the expression of joy on his aunt's face, and guessed what was in
her mind. "Don't think I'm awful good, or going to join the church. It
is not that, but I want to see the minister before Aunt Hannah comes
back."

Fortunately Mr. Sanford was at that very moment below. He had stopped on
his way to the post-office to inquire for Grey, at whose side he soon
stood, holding the pale hand in his, and looking inquiringly into the
eager face of the boy who had asked to see him alone, and who said to
him as he had to his Aunt Lucy;

"Don't think I am good, or going to join the church, for I am not, I
thank you for praying for me. I guess it helped me pull through, and I
am going to pray myself by and by, but I don't want you to talk to me
about that now. I want to ask you something. Grandpa never joined the
church, and at the funeral you said he was good, that he was safe; did
you mean it?"

Grey's eyes were fixed earnestly upon the rector, who answered,
unhesitatingly:

"I wish I were as sure of heaven as he. I know he is safe."

"You _are_ sure?" Grey rejoined, flushing a little, for now he was
nearing the real object of his interview with the rector, "You are sure,
and Aunt Hannah is sure. She ought to know. You believe her a good
woman?"

Mr. Sanford could not understand the breathless eagerness with which
Grey awaited his reply, which came quickly, decidedly:

"Your Aunt Hannah! Yes, she is the best, the truest, the purest woman
who ever lived. She is a martyr, a saint, an angel. I never knew one
like her."

"Thank you," Grey said, with a look of intense relief in his eyes. "You
have made me very happy. I wanted to feel sure, about grandpa; and now,
please go. I am very tired; some time I will see you again."

So the rector left him, feeling a little disappointed with the result of
his interview. He had hoped that Grey wished to speak with him of
himself, and of his new resolves for the future, when, in fact, it was
only a wish to be reassured of his grandfather's safety, which the boy
possibly doubted a little because he had never united himself with the
church. That Hannah had anything to do with it the rector never
suspected and did not dream of the great gladness in Grey's heart as he
kept repeating to himself:

"She is good, even if she did know. She is a saint, a martyr, an angel;
and I distrusted her; but all my life hereafter I will devote to her by
way of atonement."

It was late in the afternoon when Hannah returned to Grey's Park, and
went up to see her nephew, of whose improved condition she had heard.

"Oh, auntie," he cried, when he saw her. "I am so glad to have you
back;" and Hannah did not guess that the boy had her back in more ways
than one, but she kissed him, and cried over him, and told him how her
heart had ached when she feared she might lose him, and how desolate the
world would be without him, while he told her how much he loved her, and
how he meant to care for her when he was a man, and take her to Europe,
and everywhere.

"And you will grow young again," he said. "You have never had any
youth, I guess. How old are you, auntie?"

She told him she was forty-six, and making a little mental subtraction
he thought:

"Fifteen when it happened. No, she has had no youth, no girlhood;" but
to her he said: "You do not look so old, and you are very pretty still;
not exactly like Aunt Lucy or mother. You are different from them both,
though more like Aunt Lucy, whose face is the sweetest I ever saw except
yours, which looks as if Christ had put His hand hard upon it and left
His impress there."

There were great tears upon the face where Christ had laid His hands so
hard, and Grey kissed them away, and then asked about the old house, and
said he was coming to spend the day with her just as soon as possible,
and the night, too, adding, in a sudden burst of bravery and enthusiasm:

"And I'll sleep in grandpa's room, if you wish it, I am not afraid
because he died in there."

"No, no," Hannah said, and her cheek paled a little. "It is not
necessary for you to sleep there. No one will ever do that again. I
shall always keep it as he left it."

Grey knew what she meant, but made no comment, and as he seemed very
tired Hannah soon left him to rest.

Naturally strong and full of vigor, Grey's recovery was rapid, and in
ten days from the time the fever left him, his father drove him to the
farm-house, where Hannah was expecting him, with the south room made as
cheerful as possible, and a most tempting lunch spread for him upon a
little round table before the fire. Mr. Jerrold was going to Boston that
afternoon, and so Grey was left alone with his aunt, as he wished to be,
for he meant to tell her that he, too, shared her secret, and after his
father had gone and his lunch was over, he burst out suddenly:

"Auntie, there is something I must tell you. I can't keep it any longer.
I was here the night grandpa died. I was in the kitchen, and heard
about--about that under the floor!"

"Grey!" Hannah gasped, as her work dropped from her nerveless hands,
which shook violently.

"Yes," Grey went on. "I wanted to come with father, but he said no, and
so I went to my room but could not go to bed, for I knew grandpa was
dying, and I wished to see him, and I stole out the back way, and came
across the fields and into the kitchen, where I stood warming myself by
the stove and heard you all talking in the next room. I did not mean to
listen, but I could not help it, and I heard grandpa say: 'Thirty-one
years ago, to-night, I killed a man in the kitchen yonder, and buried
him under the floor, under my bed, and have slept over him ever since.'
You see I remember his very words, they affected me so much, I thought
the floor came up and struck me in the face, and that my throat would
burst with the lump which almost strangled me. I did not hear any more,
for I ran from the house into the open air where I could breathe, and
went back to Grey's Park, and up to my room without being missed at all.
I thought I should die, and that was what made me sick, and why I did
not come here till the funeral and why I did not want to see grandpa. I
was so disappointed, so shocked, and afraid he was not in heaven, till I
heard what Mr. Sanford said, and, auntie, I must tell you all, I thought
dreadful things of you, too, because you knew. I thought you were what
they said '_Old 'Scape Gallows_' was, an accomplice."

"Oh, Grey, my boy, no, no," Hannah cried aghast. "This is worse than
death, and from _you_. I cannot bear it."

In an instant Grey was kneeling at her side, imploring her forgiveness
and telling her he did not think this of her now.

"I know you are good, a saint, a martyr, an angel, the best woman that
ever lived. Mr. Sanford said so."

"Mr. Sanford!" Hannah, exclaimed. "What do you mean? You have not spoken
to him?"

"Not of that," Grey said. "But I sent for him, you know, and Aunt Lucy
thought I was going to be good and join the church, but I only wanted
him to tell me sure that grandpa was safe, and that you were good, as I
used to think you were. He never suspected I was inquiring about you, I
brought it in so neat; but he said you were a martyr, a saint, an
angel, and the best woman that ever lived, and I believed him, and love
you so much, and pity you so much for all you must have suffered. And,
now, tell me about it. Don't omit a single detail. I want to know it
all."

So she told him everything, and when the story was ended, he took her
white face between his two hands, and kissing it tenderly, said:

"Now, I am sure you are a saint, a martyr, an angel; but the martyrdom
is over. I shall take care of you, I will help you find Elizabeth Rogers
or her heirs, and father shall not know. I'll go to Europe when I am a
man, and inquire at every house in Carnarvon for Joel Rogers or his
sister; and when I find the heirs, I will send the money to them, and
they shall never know where it came from; and if there are shares in
quarries and mines, I'll manage that somehow. I am to be a lawyer, you
know, and I can find some kink which will work."

How he comforted her with his cheery, hopeful words, and how fast the
hours flew by until Tom came to take him back to Grey's Park. But Grey
begged so hard to stay all night, that Hannah ventured to keep him, and
Tom returned without him.

"I am not a bit afraid of the house now, and would as soon sleep in
grandpa's room as anywhere," he said to Hannah, as they sat together in
the evening, and then they talked of her future until Grey was old
enough to take care of her, as he meant to do.

"Shall you stay here?" he asked, and Hannah replied:

"I don't know yet what I shall do, I shall let your father decide for
me."

"You might live with us in Boston," Grey said. "That would be jolly for
me; but I don't know how you and mother would hitch together, you are so
unlike. I wish I was big, and married, and then I know just where you
would go. But father will arrange it, I am sure."

And three weeks later, when Burton came up from Boston after his son, he
did arrange it for her.

"It is of no use," he said to her. "I have tried meeting and mingling
with my friends, and I feel as if they saw on my face what is always in
my mind, and if I stay in Boston I shall some day scream out to the
public that my father was a murderer. I could not help it, and I can
understand now how Lucy was wrought upon to do what she did in church
when they thought her crazy. I shall be crazy, too, if I stay here, and
I am going away. Geraldine likes Europe, and so do I; and as I can leave
my business as well as not, I shall shut up my house, and go abroad
until I feel that I can look my fellowmen in the face."

"And Grey?" Hannah asked, sorrowfully, knowing how dreary her life would
be with him so far away.

"I shall take him with me," her brother replied, "I shall put him in
school somewhere in England or Germany, and send him eventually to
Oxford. But you will stay here, won't you? I'd rather you would."

"Yes," she answered, still more sadly, for she fully understood the
intense selfishness of the man, who went on:

"I shall be happier, knowing you are here, for I cannot have the house
sold, or rented, or even left alone, lest by some chance the secret of
our lives should be discovered. I am almost as morbid on the subject as
father was: but with you here, I shall feel safe. You can have any one
live with you whom you choose, and I will supply you with plenty of
money. So I do not see why you should not in time be quite content."

"Yes, brother," Hannah said, very low; "but shall I not see Grey for
years?"

"Perhaps not; I don't know," was her brother's reply, as he arose to go,
without a single throb of pity for the woman who was to be left alone in
the home so hateful to him.

But Grey, when he heard of the plan, which did not surprise him,
comforted her with the assurance that he should spend all his long
vacations with her, as he did not mind crossing the ocean at all.

"I may be with you oftener than if I were in America, and then some time
I'll go to Carnarvon and begin the search. So, don't feel so badly," he
said to her as he saw the great tears roll down her cheeks, and guessed
in part her sorrow.

And so the necessary arrangements were made as rapidly as possible, and
one Saturday about the middle of March, Hannah stood on the wharf in New
York with a feeling like death in her heart, and saw Grey sail away and
leave her there alone.




CHAPTER XVI.

EXPECTING BESSIE.


After Miss McPherson had sent her letter to her nephew, Archie, asking
him to give his little daughter to her keeping, her whole nature seemed
to change, and there was on her face a look of happy expectancy rarely
seen there before. Even her cook, Sarah, and her maid, Flora, noticed
and discussed it as they sat together by the kitchen fire; but as Miss
McPherson never encouraged familiarities with her domestics, they asked
her no questions, and only wondered and speculated when she bade them
remove everything from the small bedroom at the end of the upper hall,
which communicated with her own sleeping apartment. But when this room
was papered and painted, and furnished with a pretty carpet of drab and
blue, and a single iron bedstead with lace hangings, and a child's
bureau and rocking-chair, and more than all when a large doll was
bought, with a complete wardrobe for it, Flora could no longer restrain
her curiosity, but asked if her mistress were expecting a child.

"Yes," was the reply, "my grandniece, Betsey, who was named for me. She
lives at Stoneleigh, my old home in Wales, and I may get a letter any
day saying she has sailed. I shall go to New York to meet her so have my
things ready for me to start at a moment's notice."

So confident was Miss McPherson that her nephew would be glad to have
his daughter removed from the influences around her to a home where she
was sure of enough to eat, and that his frivolous wife would be glad to
be rid of a child who must be in the way of her flirtations, that she
was constantly expecting to hear that she was coming. She did not
believe Archie would bring her himself, but she thought he would
probably consign her to the care of some reliable person, or put her in
charge of the captain or stewardess, and in her anxiety to have the
little girl she had written a second letter three days after she sent
the first. In this she had suggested the stewardess of the Celtic, whom
she knew, and with whom she assured Archie he could trust his child. But
days and weeks went by, until it was past the middle of June, and still
there were no tidings of Bessie; at last, however, there came a foreign
letter, addressed in a woman's hand to:

    "Miss Elizabeth McPherson, Allington, Worcester Co., Mass., U.S.A."

The Elizabeth was an affront to the good woman, who bristled all over
with resentment, as she held the dainty envelope in her hand and studied
the strange monogram, "D.A.M." (Daisy Allen McPherson).

"Swears even in her monogram! I knew she would," was Miss Betsey's
comment, as she broke the seal and began to read, first muttering to
herself, "She writes well enough."

The letter was as follows:

    "STONELEIGH, BANGOR, June 3d.

    "OUR DEAR AUNT."

    "Umph! I'm not _her_ aunt," was the mental comment, and then she
    read on:

    "We have just come home from Paris, where we spent several
    delightful weeks with a party of friends, who would gladly have kept
    us longer, but Archie was homesick for the old place, though what he
    can see in it to admire I am sure I do not know. So here we are for
    an indefinite length of time, and here we found both your letters,
    which old Anthony, who grows more and more stupid every year, failed
    to forward to us in Paris. As Archie leaves everything to me, he
    said I must answer the letters, and thank you for your offer to
    remove our little girl from the poisonous atmosphere you think
    surrounds her, and bring her up morally and spiritually. I do not
    know what the atmosphere of Stoneleigh used to be when you lived
    here, but I assure you it is very healthy now; not at all poisonous,
    or malarious. We have had some of the oldest yews cut down and that
    lets in the sunshine and fresh air, too.

    "But I am wandering from the object of my letter, which is to say
    that we cannot let you have our little Bessie, even with the
    prospect of her learning to scour knives and pare potatoes, and
    possibly having a few thousands, if she does well. Archie would as
    soon part with his eyes as with Bessie; while nothing short of an
    assured fortune, and that a large one, would induce me to give her
    up. She is in one sense my stock in trade--"

"Heartless wretch!" dropped from the indignant lady's lips. "Her stock
in trade! What does she mean? Does she play out this child for her own
base purposes?"

Then she read on:

    "Strangers are always attracted by her, and through her we make so
    many pleasant acquaintances. Indeed, she quite throws me into the
    shade, but I am not at all jealous. I am satisfied to be known only
    as Bessie's mother. I am very proud of her, and hope some day to see
    her at least a countess."

"Countess! Fool!" muttered Miss Betsey, and read on:

"The inclosed photograph is like her in features, but fails, I think, in
expression, but I send it, as it will give you some idea of her as she
is now."

Here Miss Betsey stopped, and taking a card from the bit of tissue paper
in which it was wrapped, gazed earnestly and with a feeling of intense
yearning and bitter disappointment upon the beautiful face, whose great
wide-open, blue eyes looked at her, just as they had looked at her on
the sands at Aberystwyth. The photographer's art had succeeded admirably
with Bessie, and made a most wonderful picture of childish innocence and
beauty, besides bringing out about the mouth and into the eyes that
patient, half sorry expression which spoke to Miss Betsey of loneliness
and hunger far up in the fourth and fifth stories of fashionable hotels,
where the little girl often ate her smuggled dinner of rolls and nuts
and raisins, and whatever else her mother could convey into her pocket
unobserved by those around her.

"Yes, she looks as if a big slice of plum pudding or mince pie would do
her good! Poor little thing, and I am not to have her," Miss Betsey
said, with a lump in her throat, as she continued reading:

    "You saw her once, I know, three years ago, at Aberystwyth, though
    she had no idea then who the funny woman was who asked her so many
    questions. Why didn't you make yourself known to us? Archie would
    have been delighted to meet you. He never saw you, I believe. And
    why didn't you speak to me when I went by as Bessie says I did? Was
    Archie with me, I wonder? or, was it young Lord Hardy from Dublin,
    Archie's best friend? He was with us there, and sometimes walked
    with me when Archie was not inclined to go out. He is very nice, and
    Archie is very fond of him, while to Bessie and me he is like a
    brother."

Here Miss Betsey stopped again, and taking off her spectacles harangued
the tortoise-shell cat, who was sitting on the rug and looking at her.

"Archie's friend! her brother! Humbug! It does make me so mad to see a
married woman with a young snipper-snapper of a fellow chasing after
her, and using her husband as a cover. Mark my words, the woman who does
that is not a pure, good woman at heart, or in thought, though outwardly
she may be sweet as sugar; and her husband--

"Well, he is both weak and unmanly to allow it, and is looked upon with
contempt."

To all this Mrs. Tortoise-shell purred an assent, and the lady went on
with the letter.

    "Bessie is wailing for me to go for a walk, and so I must bring this
    letter to a close. Archie sends his love, and will, with me, be very
    glad to welcome you to your old home, should you care to visit it.
    When I was a child I thought it the grandest place in the world, but
    it is very much run down, for we have no money with which to keep it
    up, and have only the two servants, Anthony and Dorothy, both of
    whom are getting old. And yet I do not complain of Archie for not
    trying to do something. Once, however, before we were married I
    tried to rouse him to something like energy, and caring for himself,
    but since seeing the world, his world I mean, for you know of course
    I am not what would be considered his equal socially, I have changed
    my mind, and do not blame him at all. Brought up as he was with an
    idea that he must not work, it is very hard for him to overcome
    early prejudices of training and education, and I think his uncle,
    the Hon. John, would be intensely mortified to have his nephew in
    trade, though he is very careful not to give him any thing toward
    his support, and we are so poor that even a hundred pounds would be
    a fortune to us. Maybe some good angel will send it to us by and by.

    "Hoping it most devoutly, I have the honor to be,

    "Very sincerely, your niece,

    "DAISY ALLEN McPHERSON.

    "P.S.--Bessie thanks you again for the turquois ring you sent her."

"A hundred pounds! Five hundred dollars! and maybe she devoutly hopes I
shall be the good angel who will send it to her, but she is mistaken. Do
I look like an angel?" Miss Betsey said, fiercely, addressing herself
again to the cat. "No, they may go to destruction their own way. I wash
my hands of them. I should have been glad for the little girl, but I
can't have her. She will grow up like her mother, marry some fool, have
her friend and brother dangling after her, and smuggle dinners and
lunches for her children up in the attic. Well, so be it. That ends it
forever!"

The letter was an insult from beginning to end, and Miss McPherson felt
it as such, and with a sigh of keen regret as for something lost, she
put away the picture, and when Flora asked when little Miss Bessie was
coming, she answered curtly:

"Never!"




PART II.




CHAPTER I.

STONELEIGH.


The season is June; the time fourteen years prior to the commencement of
this story, and the place an old garden in Wales, about half way between
Bangor and the suspension bridge across Menai Straits. The garden, which
was very large, must have been beautiful, in the days when money was
more plenty with the proprietor than at present; but now there were
marks of neglect and decay everywhere, and in some parts of it the
shrubs, and vines, and roses were mixed together in so hopeless a tangle
that to separate them seemed impossible, while the yew trees, of which
there were several, grew dark, and thick, and untrimmed, and cast heavy
shadows upon the grass plats near them. The central part of the garden,
however, showed signs of care. The broad gravel walk was clean and
smooth, and the straight borders beside it were full of summer flowers,
among which roses were conspicuous. Indeed, there were roses everywhere,
for Anthony loved them as if they were his children, and so did the
white-faced invalid indoors, whose room old Dorothy, Anthony's wife,
kept filled with the freshest and choicest. It did not matter to her
that the sick man had wandered very far from the path of duty, and was
dying from excessive dissipation; he was her pride, her boy, whom she
had tended from his babyhood, and whom she would watch over and care for
to the last. She had defended and stood by him, when he brought home a
pretty little brown-eyed, brown haired creature, whose only fault was
her poverty and the fact that she was a chorus singer in the operas in
London, where Hugh McPherson had seen and fallen in love with her. Two
years she lived at Stoneleigh, happy as the singing birds which flew
about the place and built their nests in the yews, and then one summer
morning she died, and left to Dorothy's care a little boy of three
weeks, who, without much attention from any one as regarded his moral
and mental culture, had scrambled along somehow, and had reached the age
of sixteen without a single serious thought as to his future and without
ever having made the least exertion for himself. Dorothy and Anthony,
the two servants of the place, had taken care of him, and would continue
to do so even after his father's death, or, if they did not, his uncle,
the Hon. John McPherson, in London, would never see him want, he
thought; so, with no bad habits except his extreme indolence, which
amounted to absolute laziness, the boy's days passed on, until the hot
summer morning in June, when he lay asleep on a broad bench under the
shade of a yew tree, with his face upturned to the sunlight which
penetrated through the overchanging boughs and fell in patches upon him.
Occasionally a fly or honey-bee came and buzzed about him, but never
alighted upon him, because of the watchful vigilance of the young girl
who stood by his side, shielding him from the sun's rays with her person
and her while cape bonnet, which she also used to scare away the
insects, for Archie McPherson must not be troubled even in his sleep, if
care of hers could prevent it.

The girl who was not more than twelve in reality, though, her training
had made her much older in knowledge and experience, was singularly
beautiful, with great blue eyes and wavy golden hair, which fell in long
curls to her waist. Her dress, though scrupulously neat and clean, and
becoming, indicated that she belonged to the middle or working class,
far below the social position of the boy. But whatever inequality of
rank there was between them, she had never felt it, for ever since she
could remember anything, Archie McPherson had played with and petted and
teased her, and she was almost as much at home at Stoneleigh as in the
work-room of her mother, Mrs. Elizabeth Allen, who made dresses for the
ladies of Bangor and vicinity.

"How handsome he is," she said to herself, as she gazed admiringly upon
the sleeping boy, "and how white and slim his hands are. A great deal
whiter than mine, but that, I suppose, is because he is a gentleman's
son, and I have to wash dishes, and sweep and dust the rooms;" and the
girl glanced regretfully at her own hands, which, though fat and
well-shaped, were brown, and showed signs of the dusting and
dish-washing required of her by her mother, whose means were very
limited, and whose dressmaking did not warrant luxury of any kind.

"I wish my hands were white, and that I could wear diamond rings like
the ladies at the George," she continued; "and sometime I will, if they
are only shams. Half the world does not know the difference."

Just then a handsome carriage containing a gentleman and lady, child and
nurse, and maid, turned in at the lodge gate, which Anthony opened very
respectfully, with a pull at his forelock.

"That's the McPhersons from London! What an ugly, proud-looking thing
Lady Jane is!" the girl thought, and in watching the carriage as it
drove toward the house she relaxed her vigilance so far that a huge blue
bottle-fly which had been skirting around the spot, for some time,
alighted squarely upon Archie's nose, and roused him from his slumber.

Yawning lazily, and stretching his long arms, he looked up, and seeing
his companion, called out, in a tone half familiar, half patronizing, as
he would address an inferior:

"Halloo, Daze, what are you doing here?"

"Keeping the sun and the flies off from you; they bite awfully this
morning," she answered, quietly, and Archie continued:

"Upon my word, Daze, you are a little trump, standing bareheaded in the
sun to shield me! How long have you been here?"

"Half an hour, perhaps; and I was getting tired," was the girl's reply;
but Archie did not ask her to sit down beside him, for he wanted all the
bench to lounge upon, and leaning upon his elbow he went on talking to
her, and answering her questions jestingly, until she said:

"How is your father?"

Then there came a shadow upon the face of the boy, who replied:

"He is worse, and they have sent for Uncle John and Lady Jane. We expect
them to-day."

"Yes, I know; they came while you were asleep. Lady Jane looks very
proud," Daisy said, and Archie rejoined:

"She looks as she is then. I hate her!"

If Archie hated her, Daisy did too, and she answered promptly, "So do
I!" though she had never seen the lady in question until that morning
when she rode by, arching her long neck and looking curiously around
her.

"She thinks the world made only for her and the baby Neil," Archie said,
"and Dorothy thinks so too. She is in a great way about her coming
because we have no servants, I don't care! Let Uncle John give us some
money if they want style when they come to Stoneleigh."

"That's so!" and Daisy nodded approvingly; then she went on: "Mother has
made some lemon jelly for the dinner, because Dorothy says she makes it
so nice, and I am going over this evening to wash the dishes and help
Dorothy a little."

"You? I wouldn't!" Archie said, looking reflectingly at her.

"But she will give me a shilling toward a new sash," was the girl's
answer, and Archie replied:

"I'll give you the shilling; don't go," and he put his hand in his
pocket for the shilling, which Daisy knew was not there, for the poverty
of the McPhersons of Stoneleigh was no secret in the neighborhood any
more than was the pride which kept them so poor.

She had often heard both discussed by her mother's customers, and when
Archie said, as he withdrew his hand empty, "Plague on it, what a bother
it is never to have any money; I wish we were not so poor. I wonder how
I can make a fortune; I've thought of forty ways," she asked saucily:

"Did you ever think of going to work?"

"To work! To work!" he repeated, slowly, as if not fully comprehending
her, "I don't think I quite know what you mean."

"I mean," she replied, "that if you have no money, and want some, why
don't you go to work and earn it like Giles, the tailor, or Jones, the
baker? It would not hurt you one bit."

"That is rich!" Archie exclaimed, sitting upright for the first time and
laughing immoderately. "The best thing I have heard. Ask Lady Jane, or
Uncle John, or even Anthony, how they would like to have a McPherson
turn baker, or tailor, or tinker."

"You know I did not mean you to be any of these," the girl answered, a
little indignantly; "but you might do something. You can go to London
and be a clerk in that big store, Marshall & Snellgrove's. That would
not be hard, nor spoil your hands."

"I am afraid it would, little Daze," the boy replied. "You will have to
try again. It would never do for a McPherson to be in trade. We were not
born to it. How would _gambling_ suit you? Piles of money are made that
way."

"Gambling!" Daisy repeated, and could Miss Betsey McPherson have seen
the scorn which flashed in the eyes of Daisy Allen, she would have
forgiven the Daisy McPherson whom she saw years after upon the terrace
at Aberystwyth flirting with Lord Hardy.

But the Daisy of the Marine Terrace was a very different person from the
young girl who, with a hand upon each hip and her head on one side, gave
Archie a piece of her mind in terms neither mild nor selected.

"Gambling! I'd never speak to you again if you stooped to such a thing
as to play for money. You'd better a thousand times sell butcher's meat
at the corner, or cry gooseberries in the street! Suppose you are a
gentleman, a McPherson, without money, must you either gamble, or sit
still and let some one else take care of you? It won't hurt _you_ to
work any more than any body else, and you'll have to do something. Every
body says so. Suppose you do have Stoneleigh when your father dies;
there are only a few acres besides the park, and they are all run down.
What are you going to do?"

"Upon my word, I did not know you had so much vim. You are a regular
little spit-fire," Archie said, regarding her intently; then after a
pause, he added: "What am I going to do? I am sure I don't know, unless
I marry you and let you take care of me! I believe you could do it."

The hands which had been pressed on Daisy's hips met suddenly together
in a quick, nervous clasp, while there came over the girl's face a look
of wonder and surprise, and evident perplexity. Although Daisy was much
older than her years in some things, the idea of marrying Archibald
McPherson, or any one else, had never entered her mind.

Now, however, she was conscious of a new feeling, which she could not
define, and after regarding him fixedly for a moment, without any
apparent consciousness, she answered in a very matter of fact way:

"I believe I could take care of you--somehow!"

"I know you could; so, suppose we call it a bargain," Archie said, but
before Daisy could reply Lady Jane's maid appeared coming down the broad
walk.

Stopping in front of the girl and boy, and merely noticing the former by
a supercilious stare, she said to the latter interrogatively:

"Mr. Archibald McPherson?"

"Present!" he answered, with a comical look at Daisy, on whom it was
lost, for she was admiring the smart cap and pink ribbons of the maid,
who said:

"If you are Mr. Archibald, your father wishes to see you. He said I was
to fetch you directly."

Rising slowly Archie shook himself together, and started for the house,
while Daisy looked after him with a new and thoughtful expression on her
face.

"Archie!" she called at last. "Tell Dorothy I shall not come to help her
with the dishes. I have changed my mind. I do not want the shilling."

"All right," was Archie's response, as he walked on never dreaming that
he had that morning sown the first germ of the ambition which was to
overshadow all Daisy Allen's future life, and bear fruit a hundred-fold.




CHAPTER II.

THE McPHERSONS.


The room in which Hugh McPherson was lying was the largest, and coolest,
and best furnished in the house, for since he had been confined to his
bed Dorothy had brought into it everything she thought would make it
more attractive and endurable to the fastidious invalid, who, on the
June morning when his son was in the garden talking to Daisy Allen, was
propped upon pillows scarcely whiter than his thin, worn face, and was
speaking of Archie to his brother John, who was standing before him with
folded arms, and a gloomy, troubled expression on his face. Just across
the room, by an open window, sat Lady Jane, pretending to rearrange a
bowl of roses on the table near her, but listening intently to the
conversation between the two brothers.

"I don't know what will become of Archie," the sick man said, speaking
very slowly. "I shall leave him nothing but Stoneleigh, with a mortgage
on it for four hundred pounds, and a little annuity which came through
his mother. Strange, that from dear little Dora, who, when I married
her, had nothing but her sweet voice and sweeter face, the boy should
inherit all the ready money he can ever have, unless you or our sister
Betsey open your hearts to him. You used to fancy the boy, and talked
once of adopting him, when I had that fever at Pau, and you came to see
me."

Here Lady Jane's long neck arched itself more proudly, and John felt how
intently she was awaiting his reply.

"Yes, Hugh," he said, "I like the boy. He is bright and intelligent; and
I did think of adopting him once, but that was before Neil came. Now I
have a son, which makes a difference. I cannot take Archie, or do very
much for him either. You know I have very little money of my own, and I
have no right to spend Lady Jane's."

Here the willowy figure near the window bent very low over the roses,
as if satisfied with the turn matters were taking, as John went on:

"As his uncle and guardian, I will see to him, of course, and will write
to our sister, asking her to do something for him. Perhaps she will
invite him to come to her in America, and if so, what are your wishes?
Shall I let him go?"

The invalid hesitated a moment, while his common sense fought with the
old hereditary pride of blood and birth, which would keep one in the
rank to which it had pleased God to call him, even if he starved there.
The latter gained the victory, and Hugh replied:

I would rather Archie should not go to America if there is any other
way. Betsey is very peculiar in her ideas, and would as soon apprentice
him to a shoemaker as anything else. In the last letter I received from
her, she advised me to put him to some trade, and to break stone myself
on the highway, rather than do nothing. No, Archie must not go to
America, he may marry well, if you and Lady Jane look after him; and you
will, John. You will have a care for my boy when I am gone, and, oh,
never, never let him go near the gaming-table. That has been my ruin.
Keep him from that, whatever you do."

"Why not require a promise from him to that effect? He is a truthful
boy; he will keep his word," John said, and Hugh replied:

"Yes, yes, that's it; strange I never thought of it before. I will send
for him at once. Call Anthony to fetch him; and, oh, John, I owe Anthony
fifty pounds; money borrowed at different times from his hard earnings.
You will see that he is paid?"

"Yes," John answered, promptly; for Anthony, who had been at Stoneleigh
since he was a boy, and had been so much to him, was his favorite, and
should not suffer.

He would pay Anthony; but when his brother mentioned other debts owing
to the trades-people in Bangor, and Beaumaris, and even Carnarvon, he
objected, on the ground that he was not able, but said he would lay the
matter before his sister Betsey, who was far richer than himself.

It was at this point that Archie appeared in the door, and after
greeting his Uncle John and the Lady Jane with the grace and courtesy so
natural to him, he went to his father's bedside, where he stopped
suddenly, struck with an expression on the pinched, white face, which
earlier in the morning had not been there.

"Father," he cried, while a great fear took possession of him, "what is
it? Are you worse?"

"Yes, my son, weaker--that is all--and going from you very fast--before
the day is over, perhaps--and I want to talk to you, Archie, and to tell
you I have nothing to leave you but Stoneleigh, and that is mortgaged;
nothing but the small annuity on your life from your mother's little
fortune, which came too late to do her any good. Oh, Dora! who bore with
me so patiently, and loved me through all--shall I find her, I wonder?
She was so good, and I am so bad! And, Archie, my ruin has been the
gaming-table, which you must avoid as you would the plague. Death and
eternal ruin sit there side by side. Shun it, Archie, and promise me, as
you hope for heaven, never to play for money--never!"

"But what shall I do?" Archie asked, remembering that he had intended to
try his fortune at Monte Carlo, where he had heard such large sums were
sometimes made. "What shall I do?"

"I don't know, my boy," the father replied. "There will be some way
provided. Your Uncle John will look after you as your guardian, and your
aunt in America will help. But promise, and I shall die happier."

And so, with no especial thought about it, except that his father wished
it, Archie McPherson pledged himself never to play for money under any
circumstances, and the father knew the boy would keep the pledge, and
felt that his last hours of life ware easier; for those hours were his
last, and when the sun went down the master of Stoneleigh lay dead in
the room where he had blessed his son and commended him to the care of
his brother and Anthony, feeling, certain that the latter would be truer
to the trust than the former, in whom selfishness was the predominant
trait.

It was a very quiet, unpretentious funeral; for John McPherson, who knew
the expense of it would fall on himself, would have no unnecessary
display, and the third day after his death Hugh McPherson was laid to
rest by the side of the Dora he had often neglected, but always loved.

As soon as the funeral was over, John returned to London with Lady Jane,
having first given Archie a great deal of good advice, to the effect,
that he must do the best he could with what he had, and never spend a
shilling unnecessarily, or forget that he was a McPherson.

On his arrival in London, John wrote to his sister in America, telling
her of Hugh's death; of his poverty and his debts, and asking what she
was willing to do for the boy who was left, as it were, upon the world.
In due time the answer came, and was characteristic of the writer. She
would pay the mortgage and the debts to the trades-people, rather than
have the McPherson name disgraced, and she would take the boy and put
him in a way to earn his own living at some honest and respectable
occupation. If he did not choose to come, or her brother did not choose
to send him on account of any foolish pride and prejudice against labor,
then he might take care of him or the boy might starve for all of her.
This letter John and Lady Jane read together, but did not consider for a
moment. With a scornful toss of her head Lady Jane declared herself
ready to give of her own means toward the maintenance of the boy, rather
than to see a McPherson degraded to manual labor and thus disgrace her
son Neil, the apple of her eye.

And so it was settled between them that Archie was to be kept in
ignorance of his Aunt Betsey's offer, which the low taste he had
inherited from his mother might possibly prompt him to accept. Meanwhile
he was for the present to remain at Stoneleigh, where his living would
cost a mere pittance, and where he would pursue his studies as
heretofore, under the direction of a retired clergyman, who, for a
nominal sum, took boys to educate. This sum, with other absolute
necessaries, John undertook to pay, feeling when all the arrangements
were made that he had done his duty to his brother's child, who was
perfectly delighted to be left by himself at Stoneleigh, where he could
do as he pleased with Anthony and Dorothy, and his teacher, too, for
that matter, and where he was free to talk with and tease and at last
make love to Daisy Allen, for his Uncle John paid but little attention
to him beyond paying the sum he had pledged, and having him in his
family at London and in Derbyshire, for a few weeks each year when it
was most convenient.

Naturally he could not help falling in love with Daisy, who was the only
girl he ever saw except the high-bred, milk-and-water misses whom he
sometimes met in Lady Jane's drawing-room, and who, in point of beauty
and grace and piquancy, could in no degree compare with the playmate of
his childhood.

After the morning when Daisy kept the sun from him in the old yew-shaded
garden, and he jestingly proposed to marry her, that she might take care
of him, a change came over the girl, who began to develope the talent
for intrigue in which she afterward became so successful. And as a
preliminary step she made herself so necessary to Archie that his life
without her would hardly have been endurable, and of his own accord he
always shortened as much as possible, his visits to London, for he knew
how bright was the face and how warm the welcome awaiting him at
Stoneleigh.

And so it came about that when Daisy was sixteen and he was twenty, he
offered himself to the girl, who pretended no surprise or reserve, but
promptly answered yes, and then suggested that their engagement be kept
a secret from every one until he came of age and could do as he pleased,
for Daisy well knew the fierce opposition he would meet from his proud
relatives, if once they knew that he had stooped to the daughter of a
dressmaker. And so well did she manage the affair that not even Dorothy
suspected the real state of affairs, until one morning, when Archie, who
had been absent for two weeks on a tour through Scotland, astonished her
by walking into the house with Daisy, whom he introduced as his wife and
the mistress of Stoneleigh. She, too, had been to Scotland to visit some
friends, and there the marriage was consummated, and Archie had some one
to take care of him at last.

And when his uncle John wrote him a most angry letter denouncing him as
his nephew, and cutting off his yearly allowance, which, though small,
was still something to depend upon, Daisy rose to the situation and
managed his annuity, and managed the household, and managed him, until
enough was saved from their slender means to start on the campaign which
she had planned for herself, and which she carried out so successfully.

The Continent was her chosen field of action, and Monte Carlo the point
toward which she steadily set her face; until, at last, one Lovely
October day, five months after her marriage, Mr. and Mrs. Archibald
McPherson, of Stoneleigh, Wales, were registered at the Hotel
d'Angleterre, and look possession of one of the cheapest rooms, until
they could afford a better.

"It does not matter where we sleep, or where we eat, so long as we make
a good appearance outside," she said to Archie, who shrank a little at
first from the close, dreary room on the fifth floor, so different from
his large, airy apartment at home, which though very plainly furnished,
had about it an air of refinement and respectability in striking
contrast to this ten by twelve hole, where Daisy made the most ravishing
toilets of the simplest materials, with which to attract and ensnare any
silly moth ready to singe its wings at her flame. She had settled the
point that if Archie could not earn his living because he was a
McPherson, she must do it for him. Five months had sufficed to show her
that there was in him no capability or disposition for work, or
business, or exertion of any kind. He was a great, good-natured,
easy-going, indolent fellow, popular with everybody, and very fond, and
very proud of, and very dependent upon her, with no grain of jealousy in
his nature. So, when the English swells, of which there were many at
Monte Carlo, flocked around her, attracted by her fresh young beauty and
the girlish simplicity of her manners, she readily encouraged them; not
because she cared particularly for their admiration, but because she
meant to use them for her own purpose, and make them subservient to her
interests.




CHAPTER III.

AT MONTE CARLO.


Reader, have you ever been to Monte Carlo, that loveliest spot in all
the world, where nature and art have done so much; where the summer
rains fall so softly, and the winter sun shines so brightly, and where
the blue of the autumnal sky is only equaled by the blue of the
Mediterranean sea, whose waves kiss the beautiful shore and cool the
perfumed air? If you have been there you do not need a description of
the place, or of the mass of human beings, who daily press up the hill
from the station, or, swarming from those grand hotels, hurry toward one
common center, the tall Casino, whose gilded domes can he seen from
afar, and whose interior, though, so beautiful to look upon, is, as Miss
Betsey McPherson would express it, the very gate of hell. Perhaps, like
the writer of this story, you have stood by the long tables, and watched
the people seated there; the white-haired, watery-eyed old men, whose
trembling hands can scarcely hold the gold they put down with such
feverish eagerness; the men of middle age, whom experience has taught to
play cautiously, and stop just before the tide of success turns against
them; the young men, who, with the perspiration standing thickly about
their pale lips, and a strange glitter in their feverish eyes as they
see hundreds swept away, still play recklessly, desperately, until all
is lost, and they leave the accursed spot, hopelessly ruined, sometimes
seeking forgetfulness in death, with only the silent stars looking down
upon them and the restless sea moaning in their ears, lost, lost! There
are women too, at Monte Carlo, more, I verily believe than men; old
women, who sit from the hour of noon to the hour of midnight; women,
with their life's history written on their wrinkled, wicked faces;
women, who laugh hysterically when all they have is lost, and then
borrow of their friends to try their luck again; women, who go from
table to table with their long bags upon their arms, and who only risk
five or ten francs at a time, and stop when their unlucky star is in the
ascendant, or they feel that curious eyes are watching them. For these
habitual players at Monte Carlo are very superstitious, and it takes but
little to unnerve them. There are young women there too, who play first,
to see if they can win, and when by the fall of the little ball their
gold piece is doubled, they try again and again, until the habit is
fixed, and their faces are as well known in the saloons as those of the
old men with the blear eyes, which find time between the plays to scan
these young girls curiously, and calculate their price.

And among these young women, Daisy McPherson sat the morning after her
arrival at Monte Carlo, with a look of sweet innocence on her face, and
apparent unconsciousness of the attention she was attracting. She had
been among the first who entered the _salon_ at the hour of its opening,
for she was eager for the contest. She did not expect Archie to play,
for she knew he would not break the promise made to his dying father.
But she was bound by no such vow, and she meant to make her fortune on
the spot where gold was won so easily, and alas, so easily lost.

Rarely, if ever, had a more beautiful face been seen in that gilded den
than Daisy's, as she entered the room, leaning upon the arm of her
husband, and walking slowly from table to table to see how it was done
before making her first venture. Not a man but turned to look at her,
and when at last, with a trembling hand, she put down her five franc
piece, not one but was glad when she took up two, and with a smile of
triumph tried her luck again. It is said that success always attends the
new beginner at Monte Carlo, and it surely attended Daisy, who played on
and on, seldom losing, until, grown bold by repeated success, she staked
her all, one hundred and fifty francs, and doubled it at once.

"That will do. Twelve pounds are enough for one day," she said, and
depositing her gains in her leather bag, she took Archie's arm and left
the room, followed by scores of admiring eyes, while many an eager
question was asked as to who the lovely English girl could be.

In the ante-room outside there was a crowd of people moving in opposite
directions, and the train of Daisy's blue muslin, for those were not
the days of short dresses, was stepped upon and held until the gathers
at the waist gave way and there was a long, ugly rent in one of the
bottom flounces.

"I beg your pardon, miss, for my awkwardness, but really I could not
help myself, I was so pushed by the crowd," was said in Daisy's ear in a
rich Irish brogue, and turning partly round she saw a fair-haired young
man, scarcely two years older than herself, with a look of genuine
distress upon his aristocratic but boyish face, as he continued: "I hope
I have not ruined the dress, and it is such a pretty one!"

"I am sure you could not help it, but I am awful sorry, for it is my
very best gown; but then I can afford another now, for I gained twelve
pounds to-day," Daisy said, gathering up her torn skirt, and thus
showing to good advantage her pretty feet, and the fluted ruffles on her
white petticoat.

"Daisy!" Archie said, reproachfully, for he did not like her speaking
thus freely to a stranger, "Let's get out of this;" and he made his way
to the open air, followed by the young man who still kept apologizing
for his awkwardness, until Archie lost all patience, and said a little
hotly, "I tell you, it is of no consequence. My wife can afford
another."

"Your wife!" the young Irishman repented with a gasp. "Is it possible? I
thought she was your sister. She looks so young. Your wife?"

"Yes, my wife! and I am Archibald McPherson, of Stoneleigh, Bangor, in
Wales," Archie answered, fiercely, and with a look which he meant should
annihilate the enemy, who, not in the least abashed, because he really
meant no harm, lifted his soft hat very respectfully, as he replied:

"Mr. McPherson, I am glad to make your acquaintance. I was in Bangor
last year, at the George Hotel, and heard your name mentioned. I am Lord
Frederic Hardy, of Dublin, better known there as Ted Hardy, of Hardy
Manor, and I am out on a spree, running myself, independent of tutors
and guardians, and all that sort of thing; bores I consider the whole
lot of them, though my guardian, fortunately, is the best-natured and
most liberal old cove in the world, and gives me mostly all I want. I
think it a streak of luck to have met you here, where I know nobody and
nobody knows me, I hope we may be friends."

His manner, so friendly and so familiar, mollified Archie, who had heard
of the young Irish lord, whose income was £10,000 a year, and who spent
his money lavishly during the few days he was at the George, while
Daisy, who held a title in great veneration, was enraptured with this
young peer who treated her I like an equal. And so it came that in half
an hour's time the three were the best of friends, and had made several
plans with regard to what they would do during their stay at Monte
Carlo.

The next day Daisy did not see her new acquaintance, but as she was
dressing for the _table d'hote_ dinner, which she could afford with her
twelve pounds gain, a box was brought to her room, with a note addressed
to her by Lord Hardy, who wrote as follows:

    "DEAR MRS. McPHERSON: I send you a new dress in place of the one I
    had the misfortune to spoil yesterday Please accept it without a
    protest, just as if I were your brother, or your husband's best
    friend, as I hope to be. Yours sincerely,

    "TED HARDY."

"Oh, Archie!" Daisy exclaimed, as she opened the box and held to view a
soft, rich, lustrous silk of dark navy-blue, which Lord Hardy had found
in Nice, whither he had been that day, and which, in quality and style,
did justice to his taste and generosity. "Oh, Archie, isn't it a beauty,
and it almost stands alone?"

"Ye-es," Archie answered, meditatively, for he rather doubted the
propriety of receiving so costly a present for his wife from a stranger,
and he said so to Daisy, adding that it was of course very kind in Lord
Hardy, but wholly uncalled for, and she'd better return it at once, as
he would not quite like to see her wear it.

But Daisy began to cry, and said she had never had a silk dress in her
life, and this was just what she wanted, and she could make it herself,
and she presumed the amount Lord Hardy paid for it was no more to him
than a few pence were to them. And so she kept it and thanked Lord Hardy
very sweetly for it with tears swimming in her great blue eyes, when
she met him in the evening at dinner, for he had given up his luxurious
quarters at the more fashionable hotel, and had come to the same house
with the McPhersons, whose shadow he became. The navy-blue silk was
quickly made in the privacy of Daisy's apartment, and she was very
charming in it, and attracted a great deal of attention, and drove the
young Irishman nearly crazy with her smiles and coquetries. Lord Hardy
took her and her husband to drive, every day, in the most stylish
turn-out the place afforded, and took them to Nice and Mentone, and
introduced them to some friends of his who were staying at the latter
place, and of whose acquaintance, slight as it was, Daisy made capital
ever after. The adventuress was developing fast in her, and Lord Hardy
was her willing tool, always at her beck and nod, and going everywhere
with her except into the play-room itself. From that place he was
debarred, for at Monte Carlo they have decreed that no male under age
shall enter the charmed spot, and Teddy was not twenty-one, and had said
so to the man in the office, and after that neither persuasions nor
bribes were of any avail.

"Better have lied straight out," more than one hard old man said to him,
but Ted Hardy could not lie _straight out_, and so he staid out and
waited around disconsolately for Daisy, whom fortune sometimes favored
and sometimes deserted.

One day she lost everything, and came out greatly perturbed, to report
her ill-luck to "Teddy," as she called him now.

"It's a shame that I can't go in. I could loan you some, you know," Lord
Hardy said; and Daisy replied:

"Yes; 'tis an awful shame!" Then after a moment she added; "Teddy, I've
been thinking. I expect my Cousin Sue from Bangor every day."

"Ye-es," Teddy replied, slowly, and thinking at once that a cousin Sue
might be _de trop_. "Is she nice? How does she look?--any like you?"

"No; more like you, Ted. She is about your height--you are not tall, you
know; her hair is just the color of yours, and curls just like it, while
her eyes are the same. Dress you in her clothes, and you might pass for
her."

"By Jove! I see. When will she be here?" Teddy asked, and Daisy
replied:

"Just as soon as you can buy me some soft woollen goods to make her a
suit, and a pair of woman's gloves and boots which will fit you, and a
switch of hair to match yours. _Comprenez vous?_"

"You bet I do!" was the delighted answer; and within twenty-four hours
the soft woolen goods, and the boots, and gloves, and switch of hair,
and sundry other articles pertaining to a woman's toilet, were in
Daisy's room, from which, during the next day, issued shrieks of
laughter, almost too loud to be strictly lady-like, as Daisy fitted the
active little Irishman, and instructed him how to demean himself as
cousin Sue from Bangor.

Two days later, and there sat, side by side, at the roulette table, two
fair-haired English girls, as they seemed to be, and nobody suspected
the truth, or dreamed of the ruse which had succeeded admirably and
admitted to forbidden ground young Lord Hardy, who, in the new dress
which fitted him perfectly, and with Daisy's linen collar, and cuffs,
and neck-tie, and one of Daisy's hats perched on his head and drawn over
the forehead, where his own curly hair was kept in its place as a _bang_
by numerous hair-pins, would have passed for a girl anywhere. Nobody had
challenged him or his age as he passed in with Daisy, who was well known
by this time, and around whom and her companion, a crowd of curious ones
gathered and watched them as they played, cautiously at first, for that
was Daisy's style; then as Ted's Irish blood began to tingle with
excitement, more recklessly, until he whispered to her:

"Play high. There's no such thing as _second hand low_ here. Double your
stakes and I'll be your backer."

And Daisy played high and won nearly every time, while the lookers-on
marveled at her luck and wondered by what strange intuition she knew
just where to place her gold. For days the pair known to the crowd as
"_Les cousines Anglaises_," played side by side, while Lord Hardy
maintained his incognito perfectly, though some of the spectators
commented on the size of his hands and wondered why he always kept them
gloved. And Ted enjoyed it immensely, and thought it the jolliest lark
he ever had, and did not care a _sous_ how much he lost if Daisy only
won. But at last her star began to wane, and her gold-pieces were swept
off rapidly by the remorseless _croupier_, until fifty pounds went at
one stroke, and then Daisy turned pale, and said to her companion:

"Don't you think we'd better stop? I believe Satan himself is standing
behind me with his evil eye! Do look and see who is there!"

"Nobody but your husband, upon my soul," Ted whispered, after glancing
back at Archie, who, with folded arms and a cloud on his brow, stood
watching the game and longing to take his wife away. "Nobody but your
husband, who looks black as his Satanic majesty. But never you mind, my
darlint," he continued, adopting the dialect of his country. "Play high,
and it's meself'll make good all you lose. Faith and be jabers they
can't break Ted Hardy."

Thus reassured, Daisy played high, and her luck returned, and when she
left the hall that night she was richer by a thousand pounds than when
she entered it.

The next day the McPhersons left Monte Carlo, accompanied by Lord Hardy,
who went with them to Genoa, and Turin, and Milan, and the Italian
lakes, and Venice, where he said good-by, for he was going to Rome,
while they were to turn their faces homeward, stopping for a few weeks
at Paris, which Daisy said she must see before shutting herself up at
stupid old Stoneleigh, which looked very uninviting to her since she had
seen the world and found how much there was to enjoy and how much
influence she could exert in it. Others than Ted Hardy had been
attracted by the airy little beauty, who always managed to make them
serviceable in some way, notwithstanding Archie's oft-repeated protest
that she made too free with strangers, and accepted civilities where she
ought to have given rebukes. Archie had not been altogether pleased with
the campaign, and was glad when at last he drove into the old park at
Stoneleigh and was warmly welcomed by Dorothy and Anthony, who had made
the place as comfortable as possible with the small means at their
command.




CHAPTER IV.

LITTLE BESSIE.


"Oh, Archie, isn't it a poky old place, and doesn't it smell of rats and
must?" Daisy said, as with her husband she went through the great rooms,
whose only ornament consisted in the warm fires on the hearth and the
pots of chrysanthemums and late roses which Dorothy had put here and
there by way of brightening the house up a bit and making the
home-coming more cheerful for the young people.

But it needed more than roses, and chrysanthemums, and fires to satisfy
Daisy, who, forgetting the little back room in the dressmaker's shop
whence she came, and remembering only the delights of the Continent and
the excitement of Monte Carlo, and the honor, as she thought it, of
having a real live earl in her party, tossed her head a little and said
she wished she was back in Paris.

But Archie did not share her feelings. It had not been pleasant for him
to see Daisy ogled and admired by men he wanted to knock down, nor had
he quite liked the escapade at Monte Carlo, for, aside from the fear
lest the fraud should be discovered, there was always before him a dread
of what his Uncle John and the Lady Jane would say, should the affair
ever reach their ears, as it might, for Lord Hardy was not very
discreet, and was sure to tell of it sometime.

As to the playing, could he have had his choice he would far rather have
played himself than to stand by and see Daisy do it. But his vow to his
father could not be broken, and so he was tolerably content, especially
as the result was so far beyond his expectations. Fifteen hundred pounds
was the sum total of the gains, and Daisy, who held the purse and
managed everything, played the lady of Stoneleigh to perfection, and
made enemies of all her former friends, her mother included, and was
only stopped in her career of folly by the birth of her baby, who was
not at all welcome to the childish mother.

It was the latter part of March, and the crocuses and hyacinths were
just beginning to blossom in the garden at Stoneleigh, when the baby
Bessie first lay in the cradle which had rocked Archie in his infancy.
They did not call her Bessie at first; for there were many discussions
with regard to the name, Archie wishing her called Dora for his mother,
and Daisy inclining to Blanche, or Beatrice.

"I'll tell you what, Archie," she said one day. "There's that old maid
aunt of yours in America, with piles of money, they say. Let's name the
baby for her, and so get some of her filthy lucre."

"Call our baby Betsey? Are you crazy?" Archie asked. But Daisy was in
earnest, and carried her point, as she always did; and when at Easter
Lord Hardy stopped at Stoneleigh, on his way to his home in Ireland, he
was one of the sponsors for the child, who was christened _Betsey_.

"If I dared, I would add _Jane_ to it, for her Ladyship, which would
make her _Betsey Jane_; but that would be too much," Daisy said to Lord
Hardy, adding: "We shall call her Bessie, of course, and never Betsey.
We only give her that abominable cognomen for the sake of wheedling
something out of that old woman in America. Archie is to write and tell
her."

So Archie wrote the best letter he could concoct, and said he had named
his little daughter Betsey, which he hoped would please his aunt. This
he took for approval to Daisy, who said it was very well, but insisted
that he should add a P.S. that if his aunt had fifty pounds or so of
ready money, he would like to borrow it for a time, as his expenses were
heavy, and Stoneleigh needed so much repairing. At first Archie refused
utterly; it looked so much like begging, he said, but he was overruled
and added the P.S., which made Miss McPherson furious and steeled her
heart against the innocent baby who bore her name.

The request for money overmastered every gentler feeling, and the letter
was consigned to the flames and never answered.

"Never mind, Archie," Daisy said, as weeks went by and there came no
message from America. "The old miser means to cut us off. Well, let her,
I can manage without her, and our fifteen hundred pounds will last
awhile. After that is gone, trust me for more."

And Archie, who was too indolent to exert himself, did trust her, and,
parting with every vestige of manhood and manliness, did what she bade
him do and went where she bade him go; sometimes to the most expensive
hotels, where, while the money lasted they lived like princes, and when
it was gone, like rats in a hole; sometimes to Monte Carlo, where Daisy
was generally successful; sometimes to Hamburg and Baden Baden,
sometimes to Epsom, where she bet with Lord Hardy on the races, and got
her money, whether she lost or won, for the kind-hearted Ted could never
withstand her tears; and sometimes into the houses to which she managed
to get invited, and where she staid as long as possible, or until some
other house was open to her.

Meanwhile little Bessie grew into a child of wonderful loveliness.
Possessing her mother's beauty of feature and complexion and her
father's refinement of feeling, she added to them a truthful simplicity
and frank ingenuousness of manner which won all hearts to her. Much as
they might despise her mother, everybody loved and pitied Bessie, whose
life was a kind of scramble, and who early learned to think and act for
herself, and to know there was a difference between her father and her
mother. She learned, too, that large hotels, where prices were high,
meant two rolls and a cup of milk for breakfast, a biscuit or apple for
lunch, and nothing for dinner except what her mother could
surreptitiously convey into her pocket at _table d'hote_. And still,
there was no merrier, happier child playing upon the sands at
Aberystwyth than Bessie McPherson on the summer morning when Miss Betsey
McPherson first saw her and called out:

"Betsey McPherson, is that you?"

Leaving her companions she went to the tall, peculiar looking woman
sitting so straight and stiff upon the bench, and laying her soft white
hands on her knee, looked curiously and fearlessly into her face, with
the remark:

"I am _Bessie_, not _Betsey_. I think that is a horrid name."

And so the conversation commenced between the strange pair, and Bessie
told of the stingy aunt in America for whom she was named, and who had
never sent her a thing, and whom her mamma called "Old Sauerkraut."
Bessie was very communicative, and Miss McPherson learned in a few
minutes more of the Bohemian life and habits of her nephew and his wife
than she had learned at her brother's house in London, where she had
been staying for a few weeks, and where Mistress Daisy was not held in
very high esteem. And all the time she talked, Bessie's little hands
were busy with the folds of the black dress on the woman's knee, rubbing
and smoothing it with the restlessness of an active, nervous child. But
Miss McPherson would hardly have minded if the hands had worn holes in
her dress, so interested was she in the little creature talking to her
so freely.

"Would you like to go and live with me?" she asked at last. "You shall
go to school with children of your own age, and have all you want to
eat, good bread and milk, and muffins and sirup, and--"

"_Cheux fleur au gratin?_ Can I have that? I liked that best of all the
day I went to _table d'hote_ in Paris with mamma," Bessie interrupted,
and Miss McPherson replied:

"No, but you can have huckleberry pie in summer, and a sled in winter,
to ride down hill."

At the mention of the sled Bessie opened her eyes wide, and after a
moment's reflection, asked:

"Can papa go, too?"

"Yes, if he will," came hesitatingly from Miss McPherson, and the child
continued:

"And mamma?"

"No, Heaven forbid!" was the response, spoken so decidedly that the
restless hands were motionless, and into the blue eyes and about the
sweet mouth there stole the troubled, half-grieved expression, which in
after years became habitual to them.

"Don't you like my mamma?" the child said. "She is very nice and pretty,
and Lord Hardy likes her, and so does papa, for he kisses her sometimes.
Papa would not go without mamma, and I must not leave papa, so you see I
cannot go, though I'd awfully like the sled and the pie. Where do you
live?"

Miss McPherson did not reply directly to this, but said instead:

"I am going to America in a few days and shall see your Aunt Betsey.
What shall I tell her for you?"

"Tell her to send me something," was the prompt reply, which made Miss
Betsey's shoulders jerk a little.

"Send you what?" she asked, rather sharply, and Bessie, who had
commenced the rubbing process again and was looking at her hands,
replied:

"I want a turquois ring--five stones, with a pearl in the center; real,
too. I don't like shams, neither does papa; but mamma don't care, if she
gets the effect. If you'll never tell as long as you live and breathe,
those solitaires in mamma's ears are nothing but paste, and were bought
in the Palais Royal," and Bessie pursed up her lips so disdainfully that
Miss McPherson burst into a laugh, and stooping down, kissed the little
face as she said:

"That's right, child; never tolerate a sham; better the naked truth
always."

In the distance Daisy, who had passed them ten minutes or so ago, was
seen returning with young Hardy and rising to her feet, Miss Betsey
said:

"I must go now, child; good-by. Try and be good and truthful and real,
and stick to your father, and sometime, maybe, you'll see me again."

Then she walked swiftly away, and Bessie saw her no more, but for days
she talked of the queer old woman on the terrace, who had called her
Betsey and who had bade her be good and truthful and real and stick to
her father.

Numerous were the questions put to her by her father and mother,
relative to the stranger whose identity with the American aunt they
scarcely doubted; and Archie was conscious of a bitter pang as he
reflected that she had been so near to him and yet had not tried to find
him. He had heard that she was expected in London, and he knew now how
strong had been the hope that he should meet her, and that she would do
something for him. He was so tired and so ashamed of the life he
led--now here, now there, now on the first floor, now on the fifth floor
back, now plenty now penury and absolute want, according to Daisy's
luck. For Daisy managed everything and bade him take things easy and
trust to her; but he would so much rather have staid quietly at
Stoneleigh with but one meal a day and know how that meal was paid for,
than to live what to his sense of propriety seemed a not very
respectable life. But he had lost his chance. The one who might have
made living at Stoneleigh possible had ignored him. She had been where
he was, and had not sought him, and his face was very gloomy that
evening as he sat in front of the hotel with Bessie in his lap, while
Daisy walked on the terrace with Lord Hardy and told him of the old
woman on the sands who must have been the American aunt.

One week later, there came a letter from old Anthony, saying he had
received a small package by express from London, directed to Miss Betsey
McPherson, care of Archibald McPherson. Should he keep it till his
master returned, or should he forward it to Aberystwyth? Archie replied
that he was to forward it, and two days after there came to him a small
box, containing a lovely turquois ring, of five stones, unmistakably
real, with a good sized pearl in the center, and on the gold band was
inscribed, "Little Betsey, 18--"

That settled the question, of the donor, and Daisy laughed till she
cried over what she called the old woman's spite.

"Nasty old cat," she said, "why didn't she send some money instead of
this bauble, which is a deal too large for the child? She can't wear it
in years. I must say, though, that it is very beautiful, and the old
thing did herself justice when she bought it. Look, Archie, it fits me
perfectly!" and she slipped it onto her finger, where it remained; for,
as she said, Bessie could not wear it then, and it might as well do
somebody some good.

Archie wrote at once to his aunt, inclosing a card on which Bessie had
printed with infinite pains, "I got the ring; thank you ever so much."

By some fatality this letter, which was directed to Allington, Mass.,
U.S.A., went astray, and was never received by Miss McPherson, who half
expected it, and who, with the memory of the blue-eyed child upon the
sands fresh in her mind, was prepared to answer it. But no letter came
to her, or went to Archie either, and so two people were disappointed,
and the chasm widened between them, Archie imputing it to his aunt's
peculiar nature, and she charging it all to that Jezebel, as she
stigmatized Daisy, of whom she had heard most exaggerated accounts from
her brother's wife, the Lady Jane.




CHAPTER V.

AT PENRHYN PARK.


When, three years after that summer, Mrs. Captain Smithers, of Penrhyn
Park, Middlesex, invited Mr. and Mrs. Archibald McPherson to spend a few
weeks at her handsome country house, and meet the Hon. John McPherson
and his wife, the lady Jane, she did it in perfect faith and with entire
confidence in Daisy as a matron of immaculate principles and spotless
reputation. She had met her the previous winter at a pension in
Florence, where Daisy, who was suffering from a severe cold on her
lungs, played the role of the interesting invalid, and seldom went out
except for a short walk in the warmest part of the day, and only
appeared in the parlor in the evening, where she made a lovely picture,
seated in a large easy-chair, with her pretty blue wrapper and her shawl
of soft white wool wrapped around her.

The guests of the house were mostly Americans, who had never heard of
Daisy, and knew nothing of Monte Carlo, or Lord Hardy, and only saw her
a devoted wife and mother, and wondered vaguely how she could ever have
married that long, lank, lazy Englishman, who had neither life nor
spirit in him, and whom they thought a monster, because he never seemed
the least concerned when his lovely little wife coughed the hardest, and
could scarcely speak aloud. That was the English of him, they said, and
they set upon poor Archie behind his back, and tore his reputation as a
husband into shreds, and said be neglected his sick wife shamefully, and
in consequence, they were kinder and more attentive to her, and her
room was full of flowers, and fruit and bottle of port wine and sherry;
and Mrs. Captain Smithers, who fully shared the opinions of her American
cousins, took the beautiful invalid to drive with her, and made much of
her, and thought her the most charming person she had ever met, and
ended, as Daisy meant she should, by inviting her to spend the month of
August at Penrhyn Park.

"You will meet some very pleasant people," she said, "and I shall be
glad to introduce you to them. I shall ask Lady Jane McPherson and her
husband. It is a shame you have never met them. Lady Jane is rather
peculiar, but a very good woman, and you ought to know her."

This the kind-hearted and not very far-seeing Mrs. Smithers said,
because she had received the impression that the McPhersons of London
slighted the McPhersons of Stoneleigh, not so much for their poverty, as
for the fact that Daisy's family was not equal to their own.

"And this I think very absurd," she said to Daisy. "I belong to the
mercantile world, for my father is a Liverpool merchant, and at first
Smithers' mother and sisters were inclined to treat me coolly, though
they are very friendly now; so, you see, my dear, I know how it feels
not to be in perfect accord with one's family, and I mean to do my best
for you. I shall bring you and Lady Jane together. She is sure to like
you."

"Thank you." Daisy said. "I hope she may, for Bessie's sake. She could
be of use to her in the future; but, if you please, do not tell her she
is to meet me, or she may decline your invitation."

"Very well," was Mrs. Smithers' reply. "I will say nothing about you."

And so, without mentioning all her expected guests, Mrs. Smithers asked
Lady Jane to visit her in August, and that lady, who had twice before
enjoyed the hospitalities of Penrhyn Park, accepted readily, with no
suspicion that the woman whom she detested more than any creature in the
world was to be there also.

The house at Penrhyn Park was very large and commodious, with a wing on
either side of the main building, and in these wings were situated the
sleeping rooms for guests. A wide hall divided the main part, and on the
second floor were two large, airy chambers, opposite each other, with
dressing-room, and bath-room, and alcove for bed attached, and the whole
fitted up elegantly. These rooms were usually given to the most honored
guests, those who rejoiced in titles, and on the occasions of her former
visits at Penrhyn, Lady Jane had occupied one, and her bosom friend, old
Lady Oakley, the other. But this time there was a change, and when Lady
Oakley arrived with her maid, and her poodle dog, and her ear trumpet,
for she was very deaf, she was assigned a room in one of the wings, her
hostess telling her apologetically that she had thought it well to put
the McPhersons together as they would thus get on better, and she was so
anxious for Lady Jane to like Mrs. Archie, the sweetest, most amiable of
women. Lady Oakley, who knew that every apartment at Penrhyn was like a
palace, cared little where she was put, and settled herself in her
quarters the evening before the London McPhersons were expected, Daisy
had been there a week or more, for she was prompt to the day. Their
funds were very low; they were owing seven pounds for lodgings in
London, besides various bills to the green-grocer, the dry-grocer, the
milkman, and the baker, and had barely enough to pay for their
second-class tickets from London..

"I don't know what we are going to do," Archie said, when alone with his
wife in the beautiful room over which Daisy had gone into ecstasies,
exclaiming, as she seated herself in a luxurious easy-chair:

"Why, Archie, we are housed like princes! We have never been in a place
like this. I wish we were to stay longer than a month. I mean to manage
somehow for an extension."

A low growl was the only sound from Archie, who was busy brushing off
the dust gathered on the journey.

"Say, isn't it nice?" she continued, and then coming into the room and
wiping his face with the towel as he came, Archie replied:

"Nice enough, yes; but I don't know what we are going to do when we have
to leave here, I tell you, it makes a chap feel mighty mean not to have
a shilling in his pocket, and that's just my case. How much have you?"

"Twenty shillings," was Daisy's reply. "But never mind; trust me to
fill the purse somehow. I have an idea; so, don't look so glum, and let
us enjoy the present."

"But I can't," Archie replied; "I cannot enjoy myself, feeling all the
time that we are living upon other people, and accepting invitations we
never can return. In short, we are nothing but impostors, both of us."

He spoke savagely, and turned to re-enter his dressing-room, in the door
of which Bessie stood, with her great blue eyes fixed wonderingly and
sadly upon him. She had heard all the conversation, and there was a
troubled look on her face, as she said:

"What is an impostor, papa? What does it mean?"

"It means," he answered, "that we impose upon people every hour of our
lives, passing ourselves off for what we are not. People suppose we have
money, when we haven't a shilling to spare, and owe everybody besides."

"I see; it means we are shams, and not real," Bessie said, and her
bright face was overclouded with an expression pitiful to see in one so
young.

This was the McPhersons' first day at Penrhyn Park, but the little
passage at arms did not at all dim Daisy's sky. Something would turn up,
she knew; and at dinner something did turn up, for Mrs. Smithers
mentioned to Archie that her husband had fallen in with the young Irish
lord who had been for a day or two at the pension in Florence, and,
remembering how intimate he was with Mr. McPherson he had invited him to
spend a week at Penrhyn Park, and the young man had accepted, and would
arrive the 10th. There was a gleam of triumph in Daisy's eyes as they
met her husband's. The presence of Lord Hardy meant money, for she had
only to lament her poverty and talk of burying herself at Stoneleigh,
and instantly the generous Irishman would insist upon relieving her
present needs.

"It is only a loan. You can pay me some time when your ship comes in,
and really I have more than I know what to do with."

This was always Lord Hardy's argument, to which Daisy yielded, and went
on piling up the debt which she insisted would be paid in some way, and
her thoughts always turned to the old aunt in America, through whom
relief must some day come. But Archie knew better, and their
indebtedness to Lord Hardy filled him with shame, just as Daisy's
intimacy with the young man filled him with disgust, though he had
perfect faith in the Irishman, whose worst fault was an open and hearty
admiration for a married woman; and, to a certain extent, he had faith
in Daisy, who, much as she might compromise her good name by flirtation,
would never break her marriage vow in the letter, even if she did in
spirit. In a way she would be true to him always, but the world did not
know her as he did, and he knew perfectly well how she was talked about
and her frivolous conduct commented upon by such people as Lady Jane and
her set. But he could not help himself. Daisy was master, and he
submitted, with a feeling of humiliation which showed itself upon his
face and made him very quiet and ill at ease, except when Bessie was
with him. There was something about Bessie which restored his
self-respect and made a man of him, Bessie was his all, and to himself
he had made a vow that she should not follow in the footsteps of her
mother.

"I will kill her first," he said, with clenched fists and flashing eyes,
and Daisy would never have known him could she have seen him when, as
was often the case, he went over by himself what he would say to her if
he ever got his courage up.

Taking a chair for his auditor, he would gesticulate fiercely, and
declare that he would not stand it any longer. "Daisy McPherson," he
would say, addressing himself to the chair, "I tell you what it is. I am
ashamed of myself, and of you, too, and I am going to stop it, and take
you home, and be master of my own house, and if we cannot live on our
small income, you can take up your dead mother's trade and make dresses,
and, by Jove, I'll help you, too! I'll keep the books, and--and--"

Here he would stop, not knowing exactly what else he would do, for work
was something to which he did not take kindly.

As the chair never offered any remonstrance, no matter how savage he
was, he usually felt better, and respected himself more after an attack
upon it, and there the battle ended, for he had not the courage to deal
thus with his wife, who had ruled him too long to yield her scepter
now.

Such was the condition of things between this ill-assorted pair when we
find them at Penrhyn Park, which so fully accorded with Daisy's tastes
that she at once determined to stay longer than a month, even if she
were not invited to extend her visit. She had been at the park a week or
more, enjoying all the _eclat_ of the favored guest, for Mrs. Smithers'
infatuation was complete, when it was announced at the breakfast table
that the Hon. John McPherson, with Lady Jane and Neil, would arrive that
evening in time for dinner.

Instantly Archie's face flushed crimson, for he had not seen his uncle
since his marriage, which had called forth a letter so angry in its tone
that he had never answered it, or sought for any further intercourse
with his indignant relative.

Daisy, on the contrary, was wholly unmoved.

"_Veni, vidi, vici_," was her motto, which had proved true in so many
instances that she fancied she had only to meet the haughty Lady Jane
face to face and conquer her also. And yet she did feel a little nervous
when, as the hour for the train drew near, she went to her room and
commenced her toilet for dinner.

"Let me see," she murmured: "they have undoubtedly heard that I am a
brazen face and a minx, and awfully extravagant and flashy in style; so
simplicity in dress and modesty of demeanor will best suit me now. I
must not wear my paste diamonds, for though I've no idea Lady Jane can
tell them from the real, she would think them far too expensive for
people in our circumstances, and wonder how I got them."

So the false diamonds were put aside, as was everything else which could
awaken an inquiry as to its cost, and a simple blue muslin was chosen,
with ruching at the neck and nothing on the sleeves, which were rather
wide and showed to good advantage the beautifully rounded arms and
hands, of which Daisy was so proud. Her golden curls were gathered in a
shining mass at the back of her head and fastened with a comb of pink
coral, Lord Hardy's gift, when he was in Naples with her. At her throat
she wore a blush rose and another in her belt, with no jewelry of any
kind, except her wedding ring, and Bessie's turquois, which she still
appropriated. Nothing could be simpler than her whole dress, and nothing
more becoming, for it gave her a sweet girlish look, which she knew
always produced an effect.

Meanwhile the expected guests had arrived, and Daisy heard them in the
hall as they took possession of the room opposite hers. Lady Jane was
very tired, and hot, and dusty, for she had come from Edinburgh that
day, and she glanced around her luxurious apartment with a feeling of
comfort and relief, as she issued her orders to her maid, Lydia, and
talked to her husband.

"Open the little trunk, Lydia, and take out my pearl-colored grenadine;
I cannot wear a heavy silk to-night; and find my Valenciennes fichu and
my small diamonds, I don't suppose there is any one in particular here,
unless it is Lady Oakley, and she, I presume has the room opposite this.
She did, the last time we were here. John, we are really very
comfortable. Mrs. Smithers knows how to keep up an attractive house, and
is a charming woman, though, of course, not quite to the manner born.
Was her father an iron monger, or what?"

"He was a wholesale merchant, and worth a mint of money. Why, he could
buy out every McPherson and Trevellian in the United Kingdom," was
John's reply; and then, with a little toss of her head, Lady Jane began
her toilet, for it wanted but an hour of dinner.

"There, that will do for me; I can finish the rest myself. And now go to
Blanche's room and see to her and send Neil to me," she said to Lydia,
when she was nearly dressed.

Lydia obeyed, and after she had gone, Lady Jane said to her husband:

"I hope Mrs. Smithers will not object to Blanche, even if she was not
invited. I really could not leave her behind."

There was no reply from John, who was busy in the dressing-room, but a
fresh young voice from the doorway answered her:

"I think it was downright cheeky to bring her without an invitation.
With her giggling, and her _reelys_, and her _yis-es_--all she can
say--and her white eyebrows and tow hair, she is not very ornamental,
even if she has ten thousand a year."

The speaker was Neil McPherson, the boy who on the Fourth of July had
been thrashed by Grey Jerrold for his sneer at the American flag, find
his comments on American ladies. He was a year older than Grey, with a
dark, handsome face, a pleasant smile, and winsome ways when he chose to
be agreeable. As a rule, he was very good-natured, and his manners were
perfect for a boy of fifteen; but there was in all he did or said an air
of superiority, as if he felt himself quite above the majority of his
companions, which, indeed, was the fact. Trained by his mother from
infancy to consider the Trevellian blood the best in England outside the
pale of royalty, and the McPherson blood the best outside the peerage,
it was not strange that his good qualities--and he had many--should be
warped, and dwarfed, and overshadowed by an indomitable pride and
supreme selfishness, which would prompt him at any time to sacrifice his
best friend in behalf of his own interest. And yet Neil was generally a
favorite, for he was frank, and obliging, and good-humored, and very
gentlemanly in his manner, and quick to render the little attentions so
gratifying to the ladies, by whom he was held in high esteem as a
pattern boy. He was the idol of his mother, who saw no fault in him
whatever, and who had commenced already to plan for him a brilliant
marriage, or at least a marriage of money, for her own income was not
large, and that of her husband smaller still.

Blanche Trevellian, whom Neil had designated as tow-haired, and
white-browed, was her grand-niece, and Neil's second cousin, and as
heiress to ten thousand a year, she might develop into a desirable
_parti_, notwithstanding her ordinary appearance now. And so, when the
girl became an orphan, Lady Jane offered to take charge of her, and took
her into the family as the daughter of the house, though she never
encouraged Neil to think of her as a sister. She was his cousin Blanche,
and entitled to a great deal of forbearance and respect, because of her
money, and because her mother had been the granddaughter of a duke. Neil
called her cousin Blanche, and quarreled with and teased her, and made
fun of her white eyebrows, and said her feet were too big, and her
ankles too small, and that on standing she always bent her knees to make
herself look short; for she was very tall and angular, and awkward every
way.

"Wait till my cousin Bessie grows up; there's a beauty for you," he had
said to his mother on his return from Stoneleigh, where he had spent a
few days the winter previous, and greatly to the annoyance of his
mother, he talked constantly of the lovely child who had made so strong
an impression upon him.

Lady Jane had heard much of Daisy's exploits, and as the stories
concerning her were greatly exaggerated, she looked upon her, if not
actually an abandoned woman, as one whose good name was hopelessly
tarnished, and she never wished to see either her face or that of her
child. Nor did she dream how near the enemy was to her; only just across
the hall, in the room which she fully believed to be occupied by her
friend, old Lady Oakley, from Grosvenor Square. When her husband and
Neil went out, as they did soon after the latter had expressed himself
with regard to Blanche and been sharply reproved, they left the door
ajar, and she could hear the sound of footsteps in the room opposite,
where Lady Oakley was supposed to be making her toilet, just as Lady
Jane was making hers.

"I believe I will go and see her," she said to herself, when her
dressing was completed and she found she had a good fifteen minutes
before the dinner hour, and stepping across the hall she knocked at
Daisy's door.

Daisy's first impulse was to call out, "_Entrez!_" as she did on the
Continent; her second, to open the door herself, which she did,
disclosing to the view of her astonished visitor, not a fat, red-faced
dowager of seventy, but a wonderful vision of girlish loveliness, clad
in simple muslin, with a mischievous twinkle in the blue eyes which met
hers so fearlessly.

"I beg your pardon, miss," Lady Jane began, stammeringly: "I thought
this was Lady Oakley's room. She is my friend. I hope you will excuse
me," she continued, as she detected the smothered mirth in Daisy's eyes.

"There is nothing to excuse," Daisy began, in perfectly well-bred tones,
"the mistake was natural. Lady Oakley did occupy this room, I believe,
but she is now in the north wing, as Mrs. Smithers kindly gave this room
to me so that I might be near you; that is, if, as I suppose, you are
Lady Jane McPherson?" and she looked steadily at her visitor, who with a
slight bridling of her long neck, bowed in the affirmative, never
doubting that the young person before her was fully her equal,
notwithstanding the plainness of her dress, every detail of which she
took in at a glance and mentally pronounced perfect.

"Some poor earl's daughter whom Mrs. Smithers has found. She has a
peculiar talent for making good acquaintances," she thought, just as
Daisy offered her hand, which she involuntarily took, but dropped as if
it had been a viper when the latter said:

"Then you are my aunt, or rather my husband's aunt, for I am Mrs.
Archibald McPherson, and I am so glad to meet you."

Had a bomb-shell exploded at Lady Jane's feet and struck her in the face
she could not have been more astonished. Stepping quickly back from this
claimant to her notice, her face grew pale for an instant, and then
flushed with anger, as she gasped:

"_You_, Mrs. Archibald McPherson! that--that--" she did not say what,
but added, "What are you doing here?"

"Visiting Mrs. Smithers like yourself," Daisy replied, with
imperturbable gravity. "We were together in Florence, where I was sick,
and she was kind enough to like me, and she invited me to spend this
month with her, so that I might meet Archie's relatives, whom she
thought I ought to know, and Lady Oakley thinks so too. She came
yesterday."

"Yes," Lady Jane kept repeating, as she retreated step by step till she
stood in her own door, with her eyes still fixed upon Daisy, who
fascinated her in spite of her deeply rooted prejudice, amounting almost
to hatred.

The creature, as she designated her, was far prettier than she had
supposed, and might pass for a lady with those who knew nothing of her
antecedents--but then her reputation as a bold, fast woman! Would it be
safe or right to allow Blanche, whom she designed for Neil, to remain
under the same roof with such a person? was her first query. Still, if
Mrs. Smithers, who was a power in the social world, notwithstanding her
connection with trade, had taken her up, and Lady Oakley, too, perhaps
it would be better not to make a scene and show her animosity too much.
She could be barely civil to the woman and cut her visit short on one
pretext or another. Thus deciding, she said:

"Meeting you so suddenly has surprised me very much, Mrs. McPherson. I
hope your husband is well. I knew him when a boy. Perhaps he is in the
drawing-room. I think I will go down, as it is nearly dinnertime," and
bowing stiffly, she went down the stairs, every nerve quivering with
insulted dignity, and not quite certain whether she heard a smothered
laugh or not from the room, where Daisy was shaking with laughter at
what she termed the old cat's discomfiture.

"Nasty thing!" she said "how she hates me, and how little I care! I hope
I sha'n't let her spoil my fun. I have the inside track, and I mean to
keep it!"

Thus deciding, she, too, started for the drawing-room, where the guests
were assembling for dinner, and where Mrs. Smithers, who was by nature
rather officious and anxious to right everything, was explaining to Lady
Jane that she had invited Mr. and Mrs. Archibald McPherson to meet her,
and was descanting upon the beauty and amiability of the latter, whom
her ladyship was sure to like.

"A little too much of a coquette, perhaps," she said, "but so very
pretty and piquant that she cannot help attracting admiration."

"Yes, I know--I have seen her. I made her acquaintance in the upper
hall," Lady Jane answered, coldly, and this saved the embarrassment of
an introduction when Daisy at last appeared, perfectly self-possessed
and graceful, and looking, as Lady Jane unwillingly confessed to
herself, as innocent as a Madonna.

Meanwhile Archie had sought his uncle, resolved to have the awkwardness
of their first meeting over before any prying eyes were upon them. He
found him alone, and, mustering all his courage, went up to him and
offered his hand, as if nothing had ever occured to separate them.

John McPherson had heard from his host that his nephew was there, and
was in a most perturbed state of mind, on his wife's account, rather
than on his own. She would be very indignant, and perhaps do something
rash, he feared, while, for himself he wanted to see the boy, whom he
had always liked. It was while he was thinking thus that Archie came
suddenly upon him. In his surprise, Mr. McPherson forgot everything
except the young man standing so humbly before him, with a look on his
face, and in his eyes, like the brother dead years ago, and who, when
dying, had said, "Be kind to Archie."

Extending both hands to his nephew, he said:

"Archie, by Jove, I am glad to see you. I hope you are well, though upon
my word, you don't look so," and he glanced curiously, and with a
sensation of pity, at the young man, who, though scarcely thirty-one,
might have passed for forty, he was so pale and care worn, while his
clothes were threadbare and shining in places, and hung upon him
loosely. But at this cordial greeting, there was a wonderful
transformation, and Archie's face grew almost boyish in its expression,
and there was a moisture in his eyes as he took his uncle's hands and
held them, while he answered the questions put to him so rapidly.
Remembering at last that it was his duty to reprove his nephew a little,
the Hon. John said to him:

"I have been very angry with you, for your hasty marriage was not what I
could have wished. It has severed you from--us--from Lady Jane
completely."

"Yes, I know," Archie replied. "I supposed you would not like it; but my
marriage was for myself, and not for any one else."

"And it has proved all you could wish?" his uncle asked, regarding him
steadily.

Archie's face was very red, and his lips were white, as he replied:

"Daisy was very young. We ought to have waited; but she is beautiful,
and greatly admired."

"Umph! More's the pity!" John said. Then, after a moment's silence, he
continued: "I say, Archie, how have you managed to live all these years?
I hear of you everywhere I hope you have not resorted to the
gaming-table?"

"Never!" came decidedly from Archie, "Do you think I would break my
promise to my father? I have never touched a card, even for amusement,
though I have wanted to so much, when I needed money sadly and saw how
easily it was won at Monte Carlo."

"Your wife plays, though!" John said sharply; and Archie replied:

"I have nothing to say on that score, except that Daisy takes care of
me. I should starve without her; for you know I was not brought up to
work, and it is too late now to begin, though I believe I'd be willing
to break stone on the highway, if I had the strength."

"Yes, yes, I see," the uncle interposed, a horrible dread seizing him
lest his nephew might do something beneath a McPherson unless he was
prevented.

"How much have you now?--how much money, I mean?"

"Just one shilling; and Daisy has, ten. If Mrs. Smithers had not invited
us here, Heaven only knows what we should have done, for Daisy will not
stay at Stoneleigh; so we travel from place to place, and she manages
somehow," Archie said: and his uncle rejoined:

"And makes her name a by-word and a reproach, as I suppose you know."

"Daisy is my wife!" Archie replied, with a dignity for which his uncle
menially respected him.

Just then the last dinner-bell rang, and rising from his seat, John put
his hand first in his vest pocket and then into Archie's hand, where he
left a twenty-pound note, saying rapidly:

"You needn't tell _her_--your wife I mean, or mine, either. A man may do
as he likes occasionally."

They were walking toward the house, arm-in-arm, and Archie's step was
lighter, and his face brighter and handsomer than it had been in many a
day. Indeed, he was quite his old self as he entered the drawing room
and greeted his august aunt, who received him more graciously than, she
had his wife.

Just then Neil came in with Bessie, whom he took to his mother, saying:

"Look, mother, here is Bessie. Didn't I tell you she was a beauty?"

Then, as his mother merely inclined her head, he lifted the child in
his arms and held her close to the proud lips which touched the white
forehead coldly, while a frown darkened the lady's face, for
notwithstanding that Bessie was so young and Neil a mere boy, she
disapproved of the liking between them lest it should interfere with
Blanche. But Neil did not fancy Blanche, and he did like Bessie, and
took her in to dinner, holding her little hand while she skipped and
jumped at his side and looked up in his face with those great blue eyes
which moved him strangely now, and which in the after time were to
bewilder and intoxicate and awaken in him all the better impulses of his
nature and then become the sweetest and the saddest memory of his life.

"It is so nice to go to dinner with big people and have all you want to
eat, isn't it?" she said to him, as she settled herself in her chair and
adjusted her napkin with all the precision of a grown person.

"Of course it's nice," Neil replied, never dreaming what a real dinner
was to this child who had so often dined on a bit of bread, a few
shriveled grapes, a fig or two and some raisins, trying hard to keep her
tears back when the bread was dry and scanty and she was very hungry.

She was very happy with Neil at her side, and she laughed and chatted
with him and told him of Stoneleigh and the white rabbit old Anthony was
rearing for him when he came at Christmas as he had promised to do.

Dinner being over, Archie, who did not smoke, excused himself from the
gentlemen who did, and taking Bessie with him, sauntered off into the
grounds till he reached the seat where he had found his uncle. Sitting
down upon it and taking Bessie in his lap he told her of his good
fortune and showed her the bank-note.

"Oh, I am so glad!" the child exclaimed; "for now we are real, and not
impostors, are we?"

"Not in the sense of not having any money," he replied, but there was a
sad, anxious expression on his face, as he looked down upon the little
girl beside him, and thought of the future and what it might bring to
her.

"Bessie," he said, at last, "how would you like to live at Stoneleigh
altogether, and not be traveling about?"

"Oh, I'd like it so much," Bessie said, "but I am afraid mamma would
not. She hates Stoneleigh, it's so dull."

"But you and I might live there. You would be my little housekeeper and
I could teach you your lessons," Archie said, conjuring up in his mind a
vision of a quiet home with Bessie as his companion.

If Daisy did not choose to stay with him she could go and come as she
liked, he thought, and then and there he decided that _his_ wandering
life was at an end.

The next day the party at Penrhyn Park was increased by Mr. and Mrs.
Burton Jerrold from Boston: "very nice Americans, especially the lady,
who might pass for an Englishwoman," Mrs. Smithers informed her guests.

"Yes, I know them, or rather I know their son Grey, the young cub who
thrashed me so last Fourth of July when we were at Melrose," Neil
exclaimed; "but he's not a bad fellow after all, and we grew to be good
friends, I hope he is coming, too."

But Grey did not come, as the reader will remember, for his mother made
it a kind of punishment for his quarrel with Neil, that he should remain
in London while she visited at Penrhyn Park, where she met with Lady
Jane McPherson, whom she admired greatly, and with Daisy, whom she
detested for the bold coquetry, which manifested itself so plainly after
the arrival of Lord Hardy, that even Mrs. Smithers' sense of propriety
was shocked, and she began to look forward with pleasure to the day when
her house would be freed from the presence of this lady.

The month of August was the limit of the visit, and Daisy would have
gone then had there been any place to go to except Stoneleigh. But there
was not; no friendly door was open to her. She could not return to
London, and she would not go to Stoneleigh: so, she resolved to remain
where she was until Lord Hardy returned to his country seat in Ireland,
and then she would go there and take Archie and Bessie with her.

To carry out this purpose she began suddenly to droop and affect a
languor and weakness she was far from feeling, for she had really never
been better in her life, and Archie knew it, and watched her with dismay
as she enacted the role of the interesting invalid to perfection. A
little hacking cough came on, with a pain in her side, and finally, to
Mrs. Smithers' horror, she took to her bed the last week in August,
unable to sit up, but overwhelmed with grief at her inability to travel,
and fear lest she should be a burden upon her hostess, and outstay her
welcome.

Never dreaming that it was a farce to gain time, Mrs. Smithers made the
best of it, and saw guest after guest depart, until only the Welsh
McPhersons remained, and she was longing to get away herself to the
north of Scotland, where she was due the middle of September.
Fortunately Lord Hardy went home sooner than he had intended, and wrote
to Daisy and her husband that his house was ready for them, and then the
invalid recovered her strength rapidly, and was able in three days to
leave Penrhyn Park, and travel to Ireland with Archie, who had fought
hard to return to Stoneleigh and begin the new life he had resolved
upon. But Daisy knew better than to go to Hardy Manor without him, and
she persuaded him to go with her and then to Paris, from which place she
made a flying visit to Monte Carlo, where she met with such success that
she did not greatly object to spending the holidays at Stoneleigh,
whither they went just before Christmas.

It was at this time that Archie received his aunt's letter offering to
take little Bessie and bring her up as a sensible, useful woman. For a
moment Archie's heart leaped into his throat as he thought of
emancipating his child from the baneful influence around her, but when
he remembered how desolate he should be without her, he said:

"I cannot let her go."

Upon one point, however, he was still resolved; he would remain at
Stoneleigh and keep Bessie with him. Nothing could change that decision.
Daisy would of course go where she pleased. He could not restrain her,
and as many Englishwomen did travel alone on the Continent, she might
escape remark in that respect, and be no more talked about than if he
were with her. At first Daisy objected to this plan. It was necessary
for her to earn their living, she said, and the least Archie could do
was to give the support of his presence. But Archie was firm, and when
in February Daisy started again on her trip, which had for its
destination Monte Carlo and Genoa, Archie was left behind with his
twenty-pound note, which he had not yet touched, and with Bessie as his
only companion.




CHAPTER VI.

SEVEN YEARS LATER.


Seven years, and from a lovely child of eight years old Bessie McPherson
had grown to a wonderfully beautiful girl of fifteen, whose face once
seen could never be forgotten, it was so sweet, and pure, and refined,
and yet so sad in its expression at times, as if she carried some burden
heavier than the care of her father, who was fast sinking into a state
of confirmed invalidism, and to whom she devoted all the freshness of
her young life, with no thought for herself or her own comfort. And
there was a shadow on the girl's life; a burden of shame and regret for
the silly, frivolous mother, who spent so little time at home, but who
flitted from place to place on the Continent, not always in the best of
company but managing generally to hang on to some old dowager either
English, French, or German, and so cover herself with an appearance of
respectability. Sometimes Lord Hardy was with her, and sometimes he was
not, for as he grew older and knew her better, he began to weary of her
a very little. Just now he was in Egypt, and before he started he sent
her a receipt in full for all her indebtedness to him for borrowed money
which he knew she could never pay. And Daisy had written to her husband
that the debt was paid, and had given him to understand that a stroke of
unparalleled success had enabled her to do it. When her mother died two
years before, and left a few hundreds to her daughter, Archie had urged
the necessity of sending the whole to young Hardy, but Daisy had refused
and spent it for herself. Now, however, it was paid, and he was glad,
and quite content with his uneventful life, even though, it was a life
of the closest economy and self-denial for himself and Bessie.

When Daisy had plenty she divided with the household at Stoneleigh, and
when she had little she kept it for herself, and Archie and Bessie
shifted for themselves--or rather the latter did, and was sometimes
almost as hungry as she had been when she ate the dry bread and
shriveled grapes on the fifth floor back of some large hotel.

Bessie understood perfectly her mother's mode of life, and knew that
though she was not degraded in the worst sense of the word, she was an
adventuress and a gambler, whom good, pure women shunned, and over whom
she mourned as a mother mourns for the child which has gone astray. And
yet Bessie's life was a comparatively happy one, for she had her father,
and she had Neil, her cousin, the handsome and spirited boy from Eton,
and later the dashing student from Oxford, who came sometimes to
Stoneleigh and made the place like heaven to the young girl blooming
there unseen and unknown to the great world outside, and Bessie hoped to
see him soon, for she was going with her father to London, where she had
never been since she was a child, and of which she did not remember
much. This journey had cost Bessie a great deal of anxiety and planning
as to how they could afford it; but by saving a little here and there,
and by extra self-denials on her part, sufficient money for the journey,
and for a week in town, was raised at last, and the trip decided upon.
Bessie would have liked a new dress and hat for herself, and a new coat
for her father, but these were out of the question, so she brushed and
cleaned her father's three-year-old coat, and washed and ironed her
two-year-old Holland linen, freshened up a blue ribbon for her last
year's hat, mended her gloves, put plenty of clean collars, and cuffs,
and handkerchiefs, in her bag, borrowed Dorothy's umbrella, and was
ready to start on her journey without a thought that she might look a
little old-fashioned and countrified in the gay city. They found some
cheap lodgings in the vicinity of High street, Kensington, and then she
sent her card to Neil, who came at once, and tried to be gay, and appear
as usual, but she felt that he was ill at ease, and the old hair cloth
sofa and chairs looked shabbier than ever to her, when she saw his
critical eyes upon them, and felt how out of place he was in that humble
room, with his fashionable dress and town-bred air of elegance and
luxury.

"I say, Dot, why in the name of wonder did you stumble into such a hole
as this? Could you find no better lodgings than these in all London?" he
said to her at last.

"Yes, Neil," she replied, "we could find lodgings fit for the queen, but
then we have not the queen's income, and these rooms are so cheap--only
a pound a week, and the kitchen fire included, I know they are not
pretty, but they are very clean and quiet, and Mrs. Buncher is so kind."

Bessie tried to speak naturally, but there was a tremor in her voice,
and the tears came to her great blue eyes as she looked up at her
cousin. Neil saw the tears, and stooping over her he kissed the
quivering lips, and stroking the glossy hair, said to her:

"Never mind, Bess, your face makes everything lovely, and this dingy
parlor with you in it is pleasanter to me than the finest drawing-room
in Grosvenor Square. But you ought not to be here, you and your father.
You should be at Trevellian House, as our guests, and if I owned it you
should; but there's a lot of old pokes staying there now, friends of
Blanche--Lord and Lady Somebody, Mother is great on the titles, you
know."

"Yes, I know," Bessie said, slowly; then, after a moment, she added: "I
should like to see your mother and Miss Trevellian. I was too young at
Penrhyn Park to remember much about them. Do you think they will call?"

Neil knew they would not, and he could scarcely repress a smile as he
fancied the McPherson carriage, with his mother and Blanche, driving up
before that shabby house, but he said:

"Perhaps so, though they are always so busy during the season; but I'll
tell you how you can see them. Go to the park to-morrow afternoon about
five o'clock. They are sure to be there in their gorgeous attire, and
Blanche will have her poodle-dog."

"Shall you be there?" Bessie asked, and Neil replied:

"Yes, possibly," while to himself he thought that he should not, for how
could he ride by with the gay throng and know that Bessie was sitting in
a hired chair watching for him, and most likely making some
demonstration which would draw attention to her?

"I may, and I may not," he continued: "but it will make no difference;
you will see Blanche with her poodle and her red parasol, and you will
see the princess, if you are there about half past five or six, but for
Heaven's sake don't rush forward like an idiot, as so many do,
especially Americans and people from the country: it stamps you at once
as a greenhorn."

"No, I won't," Bessie said, humbly, for something in Neil's tone hurt
her; then, as she saw him consulting his watch, she said: "Oh, Neil,
can't I walk with you just a little way? Father never goes out after
tea, and I do so long for some fresh air."

Neil looked at his watch again. It was almost six, and at seven there
was a grand dinner at Trevellian house, at which he was expected to be
present. But Bessie's blue eyes and eager face drove everything else
from his mind, and he was soon walking with her in the lovely Kensington
gardens, and her hand was on his arm, and his hand was on hers, and in
watching her bright face and listening to her quaint remarks, he forgot
how fast the minutes were going by, and the grand dinner at home waited
for him a quarter of an hour, and then the guests sat down without him
and Lady Jane's face wore a dark, stormy look, when the son of the house
appeared smiling, handsome, and gracious, and apologizing for his
tardiness by saying frankly that he was in the garden, and forgot the
lapse of time.

"You must have been greatly interested. You could not have been alone,"
Blanche said to him in an undertone.

"No, I was not alone," he replied, with great frankness. "I was with the
prettiest girl in London, or out of it, either."

"And pray who may she be?" Blanche asked.

"My cousin Bessie. She arrived yesterday," was Neil's reply.

"Oh!" and Blanche's face flushed with annoyance.

She remembered the beautiful child at Penrhyn Park, and had heard her
name so often since, that the mere mention of it was obnoxious to her,
and she was silent and sulky all through the long dinner, which lasted
until nine o'clock. When it was over, and the guests were gone. Lady
Jane turned fiercely upon her son and asked what had kept him so late.

"Cousin Bessie," he answered, "She is in the city with her father, at
No. ---- Abingdon road, and I wish you would call upon them. They really
ought to be staying here, our own blood relations as they are."

"Staying here? Not if I know myself. Is that detestable gambling woman
with them?" Lady Jane replied, with ineffable scorn.

"No," Neil answered her. "She is never with them, and Bessie is no more
like her than you are. She is the purest, and sweetest and best girl I
ever knew, and I do not think it would hurt you or Blanche either to pay
her some attention;" and having said so much, the young man left the
room in time to escape Blanche's tears and his mother's anger and
reproaches.

The next day Neil was in a penitent frame of mind, for, however much he
might laugh at Blanche and her light eyebrows, and ridicule his mother's
plans for him in that quarter, he was not at all indifferent to the ten
thousand a year, and might perhaps wish to have it. Consequently he must
not drive Blanche too far, for she had a temper and a will, and there
was another cousin one degree further removed than himself, a
good-natured, good-looking and highly-aristocratic Jack Trevellian, who
was thirty years old, and a great favorite in the best society which
London afforded, and who, if a great-uncle and two cousins were to die
without heirs, would become Sir Jack, and who, it was thought, had an
eye on the ten thousand a year. So Neil was very gracious, and sugared
Blanche's strawberries for her at breakfast, and read to her after
breakfast, and staid at home to lunch, and never mentioned Bessie, or
hinted that he would much rather be sitting with her on the old
hair-cloth sofa in Mrs. Buncher's parlor than in that elegantly
furnished boudoir, and when the hour for driving came, and his mother
complained of a headache, and asked him to go with Blanche, he consented
readily, but suggested that she leave her poodle at home, as one puppy
was enough for her, he said.

And so about five o'clock the McPherson carriage drove into the park
near Apsley House, and in it sat Miss Blanche, gorgeous in light-blue
silk and white lace hat, with large solitaires in her ears, her red
parasol held airily over her head and her insipid face wreathed in
smiles, as she talked to her companion, the handsome Neil, whose dark
face was such a contrast to her own, and who reclined indolently at her
side, answering her questions mechanically, but thinking always of
Bessie, and wondering if she were there in the hired chair, and if she
would see him, or, what was more to the purpose, if he should see her
among the multitude which thronged the park that afternoon.

Bessie was there, and had been for more than an hour, sitting with her
father near one of the entrances from Piccadilly, and wholly unconscious
of the attention she was attracting with her beautiful, fresh young
face, her animated gestures and eager remarks to her father as she
watched the passers-by, and wondered who was who, and wished Neil was
there to tell her.

"I'd like to see a real duchess, and not mistake a barmaid for one," she
said; and then a pleasant-looking man, who was standing near, and had
heard her remarks, came up to her, and lifting his hat politely said to
Archie;

"If you will permit me, sir, I will tell the young lady who the people
are. I know most of them."

"Oh, thank you; I shall be so glad if you will," Bessie replied. "You
see, father and I are right from Wales, and it is all quite new to us."

"Then you were never here before?" the stranger asked, looking down upon
her with an undisguised admiration, which yet had nothing impertinent in
it.

"Yes, years ago, when I was a mere child, and did not care for things.
Now I want to see everybody--lords, and earls, and dukes, and deans, and
prime ministers, and everybody. Do you know them?"

"Yes, most of them, by sight," the stranger said slowly, and taking his
stand where he could see her as well as the passers-by, he told her this
was a lord, and this was Disraeli, and this a grand lady of fashion, and
this a famous beauty, and this a duchess, and that Prince Leopold.

It was a fortunate afternoon Bessie had chosen, for everybody was one in
the early June sunshine, and she enjoyed it immensely, and said out what
she thought; that titled ladies and grand dames were very ordinary
looking people after all, and that the fat old dowager who rode in a
coach and four, with powdered footman behind, and a face as red as a
beet, was coarse as any fish-woman and that old Dorothy would have
looked better on the satin cushions than this representative of English
aristocracy.

"I wonder what you would think of the queen," the stranger said; but
before Bessie could reply, there was a sudden murmur among the crowd,
and a buzz of expectancy, and then the princess appeared in view, riding
slowly, and bowing graciously to the right and to the left.

Instantly there was a rush to the front, and Bessie half rose to go,
too; but remembering what Neil had said about not making herself an
idiot, as the Americans and country people did, she resumed her seat,
and the country people and the Americans stood in her way and all she
saw of the princess was her sloping shoulders and long, slender neck,
with the lace scarf tied high about it. It was too bad, and Bessie could
scarcely keep back her tears of disappointment, and was wishing she had
disregarded Neil's orders and been an idiot, when a handsome open
carriage came in sight, drawn by two splendid bays, and in it sat
Blanche Trevellian, with her red parasol over her head, and beside her
Neil McPherson, eagerly scanning the crowd in quest of the little girl,
the very thought of whom made his heart beat as Blanche had never made
it beat in all her life.

"There they come! That's he! that's Neil, my cousin," Bessie exclaimed,
and forgetting all the proprieties in her excitement, she rose so
quickly that her hat fell from her head and hung down her back, as she
went forward three or four steps and waved her handkerchief.

Neil saw her, as did Blanche and many others, and a frown darkened his
face at this unlooked-for demonstration. Still he was struck with the
wonderful picture she made, with her strikingly beautiful face lit up
with excitement, and her bright, wavy hair gleaming in the sunlight, us
she stood with uncovered head waving to him, the fashionable Neil
McPherson, whom so many knew. His first impulse, naturally, was to lift
his hat in token of recognition, but something in his meaner nature
prompted him to take no notice, until Blanche said, in her most
supercilious tone:

"Who was that brazen-faced girl? Your cousin Bessie?"

"Yes, my cousin Bessie," Neil replied, and turned to make the bow he
should have made before.

But Bessie had disappeared, and was sitting again by her father,
adjusting her hat and hating herself for having been so foolish.

"Neil was angry, I know. I saw it in his face, and I was an idiot," she
thought, just as the stranger, who had watched the proceeding with a
highly amused expression around the corners of his mouth, said to her:

"You know Neil McPherson, then? You called him your cousin."

"Yes," Bessie answered, a little proud of the relationship, "Neil is my
cousin, or rather the cousin of my father, who is Mr. Archibald
McPherson, from Bangor, Wales."

She meant to show her companion how respectable she was, even if her
dress, which she was sure he had inspected critically, was poor and out
of date, and she was not prepared for his sudden start, as he repeated:

"Mr. Archibald McPherson, of Bangor! Then you are the daughter of
that--" he checked himself, and added, "I have met your mother at Monte
Carlo," and he drew back a step or two, as if he feared that something
of the mother's character might have communicated itself to the
daughter. And Bessie saw the movement, and the change of expression on
his face, and her cheeks were scarlet with shame, but she lifted her
clear blue eyes fearlessly to his, and said:

"Yes, mother is a monomaniac on the subject of play. It is a species of
insanity, I think."

Her voice shook a little, and about her mouth there settled the
grieved, sorry look which touched the stranger at once, and coming close
to her again, he said:

"Your mother is a very beautiful woman. I think she has the loveliest
face I ever saw, with one exception," and he looked straight at the
young girl whom he had wounded, hoping this implied compliment might
atone.

But if Bessie heard or understood him she made no sign, and sat with her
hands locked tightly together and her eyes looking far away across the
sea of heads and the rapidly moving line of carriages.

This man knew her mother at her worst--not sweet, loving and kind as she
was sometimes at Stoneleigh, but as a gambler, an adventuress, a woman
of whom men jested and made sport--a woman who had probably ensured and
fleeced him, as Neil would have expressed it. Bessie knew all the
miserable catalogue of expedients resorted to by her mother to extort
money from her victims; cards, chess, bets, philopenas, loans she never
intended to pay, and which she accepted as gifts the instant the offer
was made, and when these failed, pitiful tales of scanty means and
pressing needs, an invalid husband at home, and a daughter who must be
supported.

She knew the whole, for she had seen a letter to her father written by
Lady Jane, who stated the case in plain language, and, denouncing Daisy
as a disgrace to the McPherson family, asked that Archie should exercise
his marital authority and keep his wife at home.

This letter had hurt Bessie cruelly, and when next her mother came to
Stoneleigh she had begged of her to give up the life she was leading,
and stay in her own home.

"And so all starve together," Daisy had answered her. "Do you know,
child, that you would not have enough to eat or wear, if it were not for
me? Your father has never earned a shilling in his life, and never will.
It is not in him. We are owing everybody, and somebody must work. If I
am that somebody, I choose to do it in my own way, and I am not the
highly demoralized female Lady Jane thinks me to be. Her bosom friend,
old Lady Oakley, plays at Monte Carlo, and so do many high-bred English
dames, and Americans, too, for that matter. I am no worse than scores of
women, except that I am poor and play from necessity, while they do it
for pastime. I have never been false to your father; no man has ever
insulted me that way, or ever will. If he did, I would shoot him as I
would a dog. I cannot help being pretty any more than you; I cannot sew
myself up in a bag, and shall not try to catch the small-pox, so do not
worry me again with this sickly sentiment about respectability, and the
duties of a wife. I know my own business, and can protect my own
reputation."

After this there was nothing more to be said. Daisy went back to her
profession, and Bessie took up the old life again with an added burden
of care and anxiety, and with a resolve that she would use for herself
personally just as little as possible of the money her mother sent them.
Often and often had she speculated upon and tried to fancy the class of
men her mother associated with, and whom Lady Jane called her victims,
and now here was one beside her, speaking and acting like a gentleman,
and she felt her blood tingle with bitter shame and humiliation. Had her
mother fleeced _him_, she wondered, and at last, lifting her sad eyes to
his face, she said:

"Do you know my mother well? Did you ever--play with her?"

"Yes, often," he replied; "side by side at _rouge et noir_, and at cards
and chess where she is sure to beat. She bears a charmed hand, I think,
or she would not be so successful."

He had lost money by her then, and Bessie at once found herself thinking
that if she only knew how much, and who he was, she would pay it back
pound for pound when she made a fortune.

In a vague kind of way she entertained a belief that somewhere in the
world there was a fortune awaiting her; that little girl of fifteen
summers, who sat there in Hyde Park, in her old washed linen dress and
faded ribbons, with such a keen sense of pain in her heart for the
mother who bore her, and pity for herself and her father. The latter had
paid but little intention to what she was saying to her companion, for
when he was not engrossed in the passers-by he had been half asleep, but
when he caught the names _rouge et noir_ and cards, he roused up and
said:

"Sir, my daughter has never played for money in her life, and never
will."

"I am sure she will not," the stranger rejoined, "though many highly
respectable ladies do;" then, as if he wished to chance the subject, he
turned to Bessie and said: "If Neil McPherson is your cousin there ought
to be some relationship between you and me, for he is my cousin, too."

"Yours?" Bessie asked, in some surprise, and he replied:

"Yes, my father and his mother were cousins. I am Jack Trevellian. You
have probably heard him speak of me."

"No," Bessie replied, with a decided shake of her head, which told
plainly that neither from Neil nor any one else had she ever heard of
Jack Trevellian, who felt a little chagrined that he, the man of
fashion, whose name was so familiar in all the higher circles of London,
should be wholly unknown to this girl from Wales.

Truly, she had much to learn. But she did not seem at all impressed now,
or embarrassed either, though she looked at him more closely and decided
that he resembled Neil, but was not nearly so good-looking, and that he
was awfully old.

"You know my cousin Blanche, of course," he said to her next. "You must
have seen her when you visited at Neil's father's."

"I saw her at Penrhyn Park when I was a child, but not since then until
this afternoon. I was never at Trevellian House," Bessie said, and with
the mental decision: "Poor relations who are outside the ring," Jack
Trevellian continued:

"She is not a beauty, though a great heiress. Rumor says Neil is engaged
to her."

"Neil engaged! No, he isn't. He would have told me; he tells me
everything; he is not engaged," Bessie said, quickly, while a keen sense
of pain thrilled every nerve as she thought what it would be to lose
Neil as he would be lost if he married the proud Blanche.

He was so much to her; something more than a brother, something less
than a lover, for she was too young to think of such an ending to her
friendship for him, and her heart beat rapidly and her lips quivered as
she arose on the instant to go.

"Come, father, I think we have staid long enough. You must be tired,"
she said to her father; then turning to Jack, who was thinking: "Is the
child in love with Neil? What a pity!" she said to him: "Thank you, Mr.
Trevellian, for telling me who the people were. It was very kind in you.
I will tell Neil I met you. Good-by," and she gave him her ungloved
hand, which, though small and plump and well formed, showed that it was
not a stranger to work.

Dishwashing, sweeping, dusting, bed making, and many other more menial
things it had done at intervals to save old Dorothy, the only female
domestic at Stoneleigh. But it was a very pretty hand for all that, and
Jack Trevellian felt a great desire to squeeze it as it lay in his broad
palm. But he did not, for something in Bessie's eyes forbade anything
like liberty with her, and he merely said:

"I was very glad to tell you. I wish I could do something more for you
while you stay in London. Perhaps you will let me call upon you--with
Neil," he added, as he saw a flush in Bessie's face.

She was thinking of the old hair cloth furniture, and the room which
Neil designated a hole, and which Jack Trevellian might wonder at and
despise. Such men as he had nothing in common with Mrs. Buncher's
lodgings, and she said to him, as she withdrew her hand and put on her
mended gloves:

"You had better not; father and I are out so much that we might not be
home, and you would have your trouble for nothing. Good-by again."

She took her father's arm and walked away, while Jack Trevellian stood
looking after her and thinking to himself:

"That girl has the loveliest face I ever saw. It is so full of
sweetness, and patience, and pathos, that you want to take her in your
arms and pity her, and make much of her, as a child who has been hurt
and wants soothing. She is even prettier than Flossie. By Jove, if the
coronet were mine, and the money, I'd make that girl my lady as sure as
my name is Jack. Lady Bessie Trevellian! It sounds well, and what a
sensation she would make in society. But what a mother-in-law for a man
to be saddled with. Welsh Daisy! Bah!" and with thoughts not very
complimentary to Daisy, he left the park and walked rapidly along
Piccadilly toward Grosvenor Square and Trevellian House.




CHAPTER VII.

NEIL'S DISCOMFORTURE.


Meanwhile Neil was driving on in no very enviable frame of mind.
Bessie's startling demonstration had annoyed him more than he liked to
confess. Why had she made such a spectacle of herself? and how oddly she
had looked standing there in that old linen gown with her hat hanging
down her back--and such a hat! He had noticed it in the gardens and
thought it quite out of style, and had even detected that the ribbons
had been ironed! But he did not think as much about it, or her gown
either, when he was alone with her, as he did now when there was all his
world to see and Blanche to criticise, as she did unsparingly.

"I thought you once told me she was very pretty," she said: "but I think
her a fright in that dowdy dress, and bare-headed, too! Did it to show
her hair, no doubt! There is probably some of her mother's nature in
her."

Neil could have sworn, he was so angry with Blanche and with all the
world, especially Bessie, who had got him into this mess. He tried to
make himself believe that he had intended to take Bessie and her father
for a drive in the park, but he should not do it now. Probably the linen
gown was the only one Bessie had brought with her, and the elegant Neil
McPherson, who thought so much of one's personal appearance and what
Mrs. Grundy would say, could not face the crowd with that gown at his
side, even if Bessie were in it. She would never know it, perhaps, but
she had lost her chances with Neil, who nevertheless, hated himself for
his foolish pride, and when the drive, which he shortened as much as
possible, was over, he left Blanche to go home alone, and taking a cab
drove straight to Oxford street and bought a lovely navy-blue silk and a
pretty chip hat, with a wreath of eglantines around it. These he ordered
sent to Bessie, at No. ---- Abingdon road, and then, feeling that he was
a pretty good fellow after all, he started for home, where to his
surprise, he found his cousin Jack.

"Why, Jack!" he exclaimed; "I thought you were in Ireland! When did you
return?"

"This morning; and, as you see, have lost no time in paying my respects
to you all," Jack answered, as he rose from his seat by Blanche and went
forward, with his easy, patronizing manner, which always exasperated
Neil; it had in it such an air of superiority over him, as if he were a
mere boy, to be noticed and made much of.

There was always a show of friendship between these two, but no genuine
liking. Still, they were now very gracious to each other, and talked
together until dinner was announced, when Jack offered his arm to
Blanche, to whom he devoted himself so assiduously that Neil was jealous
at once, even though for Blanche herself he did not care a penny. And he
knew Jack did not either, except as she was surrounded by the golden
halo of ten thousand a year. Neil had not made up his mind whether he
wanted that ten thousand with the incumbrance, or not; but he certainly
did not want Jack to get it, and his brow grew cloudy, and he became
very silent, until Jack startled him by saying:

"By the way, Neil, why have you never told me of that pretty little wild
blossom hidden away in Wales?"

"Whom do you mean?" Neil asked savagely; and Jack replied:

"I mean your cousin Bessie. I stumbled upon her and her father in the
park this afternoon, and told them who some of the people were. I was
standing by Miss McPherson's chair when you drove by--"

"And she made that rush at Neil as if she had been a mad thing; it was
too absurd!" Blanche chimed in, and turning to Lady Jane, she described
the scene with great minuteness of detail. "It was really too
ridiculous, to see her standing there waving her handkerchief with her
head bare to show her abundant hair, and that old linen gown, which must
have seen some years' service. I was intensely mortified to have our
friends see her, and so was Neil."

"I beg your pardon, I was not mortified at all; I liked it, and I do not
care who saw her," Neil said, rousing up in defense of Bessie, and lying
easily and fluently, for Blanche's cruel remarks made him very angry.

"Oh, you did like it, then? Your face told a different story," Blanche
retorted; while Lady Jane, forgetting her dignity, commenced a tirade
against both Bessie and her mother, the latter of whom she cordially
despised. Of the girl she knew nothing, she said, but it was fair to
suppose she was like her mother, and she did not blame Blanche for
feeling shocked at such unmaidenly advances in public to a young man.

Had Neil been a few years younger he would have called his mother a
fool, as he had done more than once in his boyhood; but he could not do
that now, and turning to Jack, who had been quietly eating his dinner,
he said:

"Jack, what did you think of Bessie? Is she a bold hussy, and ought
Blanche to smash her red parasol because Bessie's eyes have rested upon
it?"

Thus appealed to, Jack looked up, with an amused smile on his face, and
said:

"I don't quite believe Bessie's eyes did rest on Blanche's parasol. I
thought they were on you, and envied you as a lucky dog. Seriously,
though," he continued, as he saw the thunderous gleam in Neil's eyes,
and the look of triumph in Blanche's, "it did not occur to me that there
was anything bold or unmaidenly in what the young lady did, and I never
saw a more beautiful tableau than she made, standing there in the
sunshine, with her bright, wavy hair, and her lovely, eager face. She is
very beautiful, and I am so glad I have seen her. They are stopping
at--" He hesitated, and looked at Neil, who, grateful for his defense of
Bessie, unhesitatingly replied:

"No. ---- Abingdon road, near High street"

"Thank you," Jack said, making a mental memorandum of the place, with a
view to call, even if Bessie had said he better not.

After this little skirmish the dinner proceeded in peace, so far as
Bessie was concerned, for Jack Trevellian was a kind of oracle, whose
verdict could raise one to the pinnacle of public opinion, or cast him
down to the depths, and if he said Bessie was not bold, nor
brazen-faced, then she was not, though Lady Jane and Blanche disliked
her just the same.

Neil, on the contrary, forgave her fully for the annoyance he had felt,
and immediately after breakfast the next morning he started for Mrs.
Buncher's. Bessie was trying on the hat when he entered. She had
received the box only a few moments before, and had readily guessed that
Neil was the donor, and had in part divined his motive.

"He was ashamed of my old gown and hat; and they are rather the worse
for the wear, and looked very shabby among the fine dresses in the park.
But they are the best I have, unless I make over those mother sent
me--and that I cannot do," she thought, as she remembered, with a pang,
the trunkful of half-worn garments of various kinds, which her mother
had sent her from time to time, and which she could never bring herself
to wear, because of the association. They had been worn in the moral
mire of Monte Carlo and other places equally disreputable, and Bessie
could no more have put them on than she could have adopted her mother's
habits. In her linen dress, which she bought with money paid her for
roses by the ladies who frequented the "George," she felt pure and
respectable. But this gift from Neil, her cousin, she surely might keep,
for her father said so, and, young-girl-like, she was admiring herself,
or rather the hat, before the glass, when Neil himself came in.

"Hallo, Dot," he said, coming quickly to her side. "At it, I see, like
the rest of your kind; but don't it become you, though! Why, you are
sweet and fresh this morning as a rose from the old Stoneleigh garden,"
and the tall young man stooped and kissed the blushing girl two or three
times before she could withdraw herself from him. "Why, Bess," he
continued, "what a lump of dignity you are this morning! You did not
used to wriggle so when I kissed you. What has happened?"

"Nothing has happened," Bessie replied, though she knew very well there
had, for what Jack Trevellian had told her that rumor said of Neil and
Blanche had opened a new channel of thought, and made her older far than
she was before; too old for Neil to be kissing her as if she were a
child.

And then, if what Jack said was true, he had no right to kiss her, even
if she were his cousin. But was it true? She wished she knew, and after
she had thanked Neil for the dress, and asked if he were very angry with
her the day before for trying to attract his attention, and he had
assured her that he was not, she burst out:

"Oh, Neil, is it true you are to marry Miss Blanche? Mr. Jack Trevellian
stood by us yesterday and told me who the people were, and he said--"

"Jack be hanged!" Neil interrupted her. "What business has he to talk
such nonsense to you? Marry Blanche? Never! What do I want of those
light eyebrows and that pointed chin--I, who know you?"

Here he stopped, struck by something in Bessie's face which seemed to
brighten and beautify it until it shone like the face of some pure saint
to whom the gate of Paradise has just been opened. Then it occurred to
Neil suddenly that Bessie was not a child. She was a girl of fifteen and
more, with an experience which made her older than her years; and,
selfish as he was, and much as he would like to have her look at him
always as she was looking now, he felt that he must not encourage it. He
had told her he should never marry Blanche, but in his heart he thought
it possible, for, as there was no money in his own family, and he could
not exist without it, he must marry money and forget the sweet face and
soft blue eyes which moved him with a strange power and made him long to
fold Bessie in his arms, and, young as she was, claim her as something
more than a cousin. But, always politic and cautious, he restrained
himself, and said to her instead:

"I do not believe I shall ever marry anybody, certainly not for many
years, and you and I will be the best of friends always, brother and
sister, which is better than cousins. Do you consent?"

"Yes," Bessie answered, falteringly, not quite understanding him, or
knowing whether she should like the brother and sister arrangement as
well as the cousin.

Then they talked together of what Bessie had seen in the park, and she
told him all Jack Trevellian had said, and how kind he was, and how much
she liked him, until Neil felt horribly jealous of his cousin, and
wished he had staid in Ireland while Bessie was in London.

"Oh, it must be so fine to drive in a handsome carriage with the crowd.
I wish I could try it. Does it cost so very much?" she asked, and Neil
detested himself because he did not at once offer to take her and her
father for the coveted drive.

"Could he do it?" he asked himself many times, deciding finally that he
could not face his fashionable friends, and, more than all, his mother
and Blanche, with these country cousins--Archie, in his threadbare coat,
and Bessie, in her linen gown, with the big puffs at the top of the
sleeves.

Had she been less beautiful he might venture it, but everybody would
look at that face and turn to look again, and wonder who she was, and
question him about her.

No, he couldn't do it, and so he went away at last, deciding to take the
underground road to St. James Park, and meeting, as he was entering the
station, Jack Trevellian coming out.

"Hallo, Hallo!" was said by each to the other, while both looked a
little conscious, and Neil burst out, impulsively, "I say, Jack, what
brings you over here?"

"The same which brought you, I dare say," Jack replied. "I am going to
call upon your cousin."

"The deuce you are! I thought so," Neil answered, in a tone of voice
indicative of anything but pleasure.

"Have you any objections?" Jack asked, and Neil replied:

"No--yes. Jack. You are as good--yes, better than most of the fellows in
our set, but--" He hesitated, and Jack rejoined:

"But what? Go on."

"By Jove, I will speak out!" Neil continued, going close to his cousin.
"You are a man of the world, accustomed to all sorts of girls--girls who
laugh and flirt and let you make soft speeches to them and never think
of you again because they know you mean nothing. But Bessie is not that
kind; she is innocent and pure as a baby, and believes all you say,
and--and--by George, Jack, if you harm a hair of her head I'll beat you
into a pomace! You understand?"

"Yes, I rather think I do," Jack answered, with a smile; "and, Neil, you
are more of a man than I supposed; upon my soul you are; but never fear,
I will not flirt with Bessie, I will not make love to her, unless--I
fall in love myself, in which case I cannot promise; but don't distress
yourself. The Welsh rose is as safe with me as with you. Good-morning!"
and so saying, he walked off in the direction of Abingdon road, while
Neil rather unwillingly bought his ticket and went through the narrow
way and down the stairs to wait for the incoming train.




CHAPTER VIII.

JACK AND BESSIE.


Mrs. Buncher had made an effort to brighten up her dingy parlor since
her new lodgers took possession of it. She had washed the windows and
put up clean muslin curtains, and a white towel on the small table,
which was further ornamented by a bowl of lovely roses, which filled the
room with perfume and seemed to harmonize so perfectly with the fair
young girl sitting near the table and darning what would soon have been
a hole in the elbow of her father's coat. She had discovered it that
morning, and as soon as Neil left her sat down to her task, with her
pretty white apron partially covering her linen dress and greatly
improving her appearance. Bessie always wore aprons in the morning at
home, though Neil had more than once objected to it, as he said such
things belonged to housemaids and not to ladies.

"And I am the housemaid; I wash the dishes and lay the cloth and sweep
and dust, and an apron keeps my dress clean," Bessie had answered him,
laughingly, and when she came to London she brought her best apron with
her, and after Neil was gone put it on and commenced her task of
darning.

"Oh, if you could have a new coat; this is so worn and threadbare," she
said to her father, who was sitting near her in his dressing-gown. "I
wish Neil had sent you a coat instead of that dress to me. I do wish we
were rich! I would buy a lot of things, but first of all I would have a
drive in the park. Wasn't it grand! I wish Neil would take us, though
perhaps he has not the money of his own to pay for the carriage."

"Bessie," her father said, rousing up from the half dozing condition in
which he was most of the time when in the house, "you are hugging a
delusion with regard to Neil. He is very kind in a way, when it costs
him nothing, but he would never sacrifice his comfort or his feelings
for you or me. We are his poor relations, from the country; we are not
like his world, or that powdered piece of vanity who was with him
yesterday. It would cost him nothing to take us for a drive, for the
carriage is his mother's, but you couldn't hire him to go round that
park with us; he has that false pride, more common in women than in men,
which would keep him from it. He likes you very much--at Stoneleigh,
where there are none of his set to look on; but here in London it is
different. He might take us to many places, if he would; but he dares
not, lest he should be seen. He can send you a blue silk dress, which I
half wish you had returned; and he can come here and make your pulse
beat faster with his soft words and manner, which mean so little; but
other attentions we must not expect from him. I tell you this, my child,
because you are getting to be a woman. You were fifteen last March. You
are very beautiful, and Neil McPherson knows it, and if you had a
fortune he might seek to be more than your cousin; but as it is, don't
attach much importance to what he says and does, or be disappointed at
what he does not do."

Bessie did not reply for the great lump which had risen in her throat as
her father put into words what in part she had suspected, but tried to
fight down. She did not like to believe that Neil had a fault, and still
she felt that her father might be right, and that Neil _was_ ashamed of
them. Something in his manner since they came to London, would indicate
as much, and her heart was very sore with a sense of something lost, and
there were tears on her long eyelashes as she bent over the darn, too
much absorbed in her own thoughts to hear the step on the stairs or know
that any one was coming until there was a tap at the open door, and
looking up she saw Jack Trevellian standing before her. Mrs. Buncher,
who was her own waitress, had bidden him "go right up," and as the door
was ajar he stood for an instant on the upper landing and heard Archie
say:

"You were fifteen last March. You are very beautiful, and Neil McPherson
knows it, and if you had a fortune he might seek to be more than your
cousin, but as it is don't attach much importance to what he says and
does or be disappointed at what he does not do."

"The old cove has hit it," Jack thought; "he understands Neil to a dot.
If Bessie had a fortune he would go down before her in dead earnest;
and, perhaps, I would too, for, 'pon my soul, she has the sweetest face
I ever saw. What a lovely woman she will make."

And then, there arose before him a vision of a stately old house in the
north country, the home of the Trevellians, and in the family vault the
present owner, a white haired man of seventy-five was lying, and by his
side his puny eldest son, and also stalwart Harry, who looked as if a
broad-ax could not kill him, and he, Jack Trevellian now the bachelor
with only 500 pounds a year, and most extravagant tastes, was there as
Sir Jack, and with him this little Welsh maiden, who was bending over
the threadbare coat, and trying to force back the tears her father's
words had caused her.

"I am a knave and a murderer," Jack thought. "Uncle Paul, and Dick, and
Hal would have to die, and little Flossie, whom I like so much, be left
alone, before all this could be;" then, with a premonitory cough, he
knocked lightly at the open door.

"Oh, Mr. Trevellian!" Bessie exclaimed, springing to her feet and
blushing scarlet. "How you frightened me! Pray walk in. I did not expect
you. I--I--am mending father's coat."

"Yes, I see," he answered, offering her his hand after he had greeted
her father with his most graceful, courtly manner. "I see you are. I
wonder now if you are doing it well. I used to have some experience in
such matters when I was roughing it in Australia. I am a beautiful
darner; let me try my hand, please;" and taking the coat from her before
she had time to recover from her astonishment, he seated himself upon a
chair and began industriously to ply the needle, while Bessie looked on
amazed.

"You see I am quite a tailor," he said, pushing his thick brown hair
back from his white forehead, and flashing upon her one of those rare
smiles with which he always obtained the mastery and made friends even
of his enemies.

How charming he was, and he never seemed to see the humble room, the
faded carpet, the dingy oil-cloth, or the coarse hair-cloth furniture
which had offended Neil and made him call the place a hole. Of course,
Jack did see them all; he could not help that, but he acted as if he had
all his life been accustomed to just such surroundings, and was so
familiar and affable that both Bessie and her father were more charmed
with him than on the previous day.

"By the way," he said at last, when the coat was mended and approved, "I
met Neil at the station; he had been here, I suppose?"

"Yes," Bessie replied, a painful flush suffusing her cheeks as she
recalled what her father had said of Neil.

"I am half afraid he has forestalled me, then," Jack continued. "I came
to ask you and your father to drive with me in the park this afternoon;
that is, if Neil is not ahead of me."

"Oh, Mr. Trevellian," Bessie cried, turning her bright face to him,
while the glad tears sprang to her eyes, and she forgot that until
yesterday she did not know there was such a person as this elegant man
making himself so much at home with them; forgot everything except the
pleasure it would be to drive with her father in Hyde Park, and "be one
of them," as she expressed it to herself.

"Then Neil has not asked you, and you will go with me?" Jack said,
addressing himself to Archie, who replied:

"If Bessie likes--yes; and I thank you so much. You are giving my
little girl a greater pleasure than you can ever guess."

Meanwhile the color had all faded from Bessie's face, leaving it very
pale, as she stood with clasped hands and wide-open eyes, looking first
at herself in the glass and then at Jack. She was thinking of her old
linen dress and hat, and of her father's clothes. Neil was ashamed of
them, her father had said, and she believed him, though it hurt her
cruelly to do so. Would not Mr. Trevellian be ashamed of them too, when
he came to realize the contrast there was between them and the people of
his set who daily frequented the park?

"What do you say, Miss McPherson? Will you go?" Jack asked, and she
answered quickly:

"I'd like it, so much; but I thought--I'm quite sure we had better not;"
and as she thus gave up the happiness she had so coveted, she burst into
tears--tears for her poverty, and tears for Neil, who had not been so
kind to them as this stranger was.

"Why, Bessie," her father said, "what is the matter? I thought you
wanted to drive."

"I do, I do," she sobbed; then, with a quick, impatient movement she
dashed the tears from her eyes which shone like stars as she lifted them
bravely to Jack Trevellian and said, with a tinge of pride in her lone:
"I should enjoy the drive more than anything else in the world, and it
was kind in you to ask us; but, Mr. Trevellian, you don't know what it
would be to you to be seen there with father and me--he in his darned
coat and I in this gown, the best I have here, or anywhere, for summer;
and then, my hat; the ribbons are all faded and poor, just as we are,
dear father and I;" and as she talked she stepped to her father's side
and wound her arms around his neck.

There was a world of pathos in the low, sweet voice which said so sadly,
"dear father and I," and it moved Jack with a strange power, bringing a
moisture to his eyes where tears had not been in years.

Mastering his weakness Jack burst into a merry laugh which was good to
hear, as he said:

"Is it the gown, and the hat, and the old darned coat? And do you think
I care for trifles like these? I tell you honestly, I would rather take
your linen gown, to drive this afternoon, with you in it, than the most
elegant dress in London and you out of it."

And so it was arranged that they should go, and Jack staid on and on,
and read aloud to Bessie, and told her of his travels in the East, and
in Australia, and then, he scarcely knew how or why, he spoke of the old
Trevellian home in the north of England, near the border. Trevellian
Castle it was called, he said, and it had been in the family for years.

"I have two cousins there," he said, "or rather second cousins, Dick and
Harry, and I like them both so much, especially Hal, who is six feet
three inches high, and well proportioned. Quite a giant, in fact. Then
there is a young girl, Florence Meredith, Flossie we call her, she is so
like a playful kitten. She is not a cousin, at least to me, though she
calls me that. She is a distant relative of Sir Paul's wife, the mother
of Dick and Hal, and was adopted by her when a baby, Flossie is lovely,
and you remind me of her, except that she is much younger. She will make
a lovely woman, and somebody's heart will ache on her account one of
these days."

Jack hardly knew why he was taking to Bessie of little frolicsome
Flossie Meredith, the Irish lassie, who was not in the least like Bessie
McPherson, except that she was sweet, and loving, and true, and said
what she thought, and would have darned a coat or scrubbed the floor, if
necessary. He only knew that he liked sitting by Bessie and that if he
sat he must talk, and so he kept on and only arose to go when he heard
the rattling of tea-cups outside and guessed that Mrs. Buncher might be
preparing to bring up luncheon.

About half-past four that afternoon Mrs. Buncher was amazed to see a
smart carriage, with handsome horses and servants in livery, drive up
before her door and still more amazed to see her lodgers take their
seats in it, Bessie and her father, side by side, and Jack Trevellian
opposite them, with his back to the driver. It was a glorious June
afternoon, and the park was, if possible, gayer and more crowed than on
the previous day. The excitement incident upon the passing of the
princess had subsided, when the carriage turned in at the Marble Arch
and joined the moving throng, which Jack scarcely noticed, so absorbed
was he in watching Bessie's face as it sparkled and shone with eager
joy and excitement. How beautiful she was in spite of the brown linen
and the sleeve puffs which had so annoyed Neil, and while watching her
Jack felt his heart thrill with a strange feeling he had never
experienced before in all his intercourse with women, and found himself
mentally subtracting fifteen from thirty, and feeling rather appalled at
the result.

After they had been in the park ten minutes or more and were nearing a
curve, he saw a sudden flush in Bessie's face and a gleam of triumph in
her blue eyes as she looked ahead of her. Neil was coming from the
opposite direction, he was sure, and in a moment the McPherson turn-out
appeared, with Neil sitting as Jack sat, his back to the horses and his
mother and Blanche opposite. The latter saw Bessie first, and giving her
a haughty stare, spoke quickly to Lady Jane, whose stare was even more
haughty and supercilious. Neither bowed even to Jack, but Neil lifted
his hat with such a look of undisguised astonishment and disapproval on
his face that Jack laughed merrily, for he understood perfectly how
chagrined Neil was to see him there with Bessie. And Neil was chagrined
and out of sorts, and called himself a sneak, and a coward, while to
Jack he gave the name fool with an adjective prefixed. He did not even
hear what his mother and Blanche were saying of Bessie until he caught
the words from the former, "She has rather a pretty face;" then he
roused up and rejoined:

"Rather a pretty face! I should think she had. It is the loveliest face
I ever saw, and I'd rather have it beside me in the park than all the
faces in London!"

"Reely!" Blanche replied, with an upward turn of her nose. "Suppose you
get out and join them; there is room for you by Jack."

"I wish I could," Neil growled, and then he relapsed into silence and
scarcely spoke again until they returned to Grosvenor Square.

As soon as dinner was over he started for Abingdon road, and was told by
Mrs. Buncher, who received him with a slight increase of dignity in her
manner, as became one before whose door carriages and servants in livery
had stood twice in one day, that Mr. McPherson and the young lady had
gone to see "Pinafore" with the gentleman who took them to drive.

"The deuce they have!" Neil muttered and hailing a cab he too drove to
the theater, and securing the best seat he could at that late hour,
looked over the house till he found the party he was searching for,
Archie, in his threadbare coat, and high, standing collar, looking a
little bored for himself, but pleased for Bessie, whose face was radiant
as she watched the progress of the play.

For once Neil forgot the puffs and the linen gown, and thought only of
the exquisitely beautiful face and rippling golden hair, for Bessie's
head was uncovered, and Neil saw that she received quite as much
admiration from the fashionable crowd as did Little Buttercup or the
Captain's daughter, and that Jack looked supremely happy and nodded to
his friends here and there as if to call their attention to the girl
beside him.

"Confound him!" Neil thought. "What business has he to take charge of
Bessie in this way? I'll not allow it!"

But Jack had the inside track and kept it, in spite of Neil; and during
the ten days Bessie remained in London he took her everywhere, and when
she left he knew much more of some parts of the city than he did before.
Never in his life had he visited the Tower, which he looked upon as a
place frequented only by Americans or country people; but as, after the
park, this was the spot of all others which Bessie wished to see, he
went there with her, and joining the party waiting for their ranks to be
full, followed the pompous beefeater up stairs and down stairs, and into
the lady's chamber, and saw the steps by the water-gate where Elizabeth
sat down when she landed there a prisoner to her sister, and saw the
thumb-screws and other instruments of torture, and more fire-arms and
bayonets grouped in the shape of sunflowers and roses than he had
supposed were in the world, and climbed to the little room where
Guilford Dudley was imprisoned, and stared stupidly at the name of Jane
cut upon the wall, and looked down the staircase under which it was said
the murdered princes were thrown, and horrified Bessie by asking who all
these people were he had been hearing about.

"Of course I knew once," he said. "Such things were thrashed into me at
school, but hanged if I have them and their history at my tongue's end,
as you have. Are you not tired to death?" he asked, pantingly, and
fanning himself with his soft hat as they left the gloomy building, and,
after looking at the spot where Ann Boleyn and Lady Jane Grey were
beheaded, went back to the office where they dismissed their guide.

It was a scorchingly hot day, and Jack was perspiring at every pore, but
Bessie was fresh and bright as ever, and eager to go to the Abbey and
the Parliament House, and possibly _somewhere else_, and Jack obeyed her
with an inward groan, and went where she wished to go, and marveled at
her knowledge of and interest in everything pertaining to Westminster
and its surroundings. Never in his life had Jack Trevellian been as
tired as he was that night, with a back which ached so hard that he
actually bought a plaster for it next morning, and, thus strengthened
and fortified, started again on his mission. Kensington Museum, the
British Museum, the National Gallery, Crystal Palace, Hampton Court, and
the Queen's Stables were all visited by turn, and then they went for a
day to Alexandra Palace, and saw an opera, a play, a ballot, two
circuses, and rope-walking, all for a shilling, which to Bessie's frugal
mind was best of all.

That night Jack was more worn out than ever, and his back ached worse
than after the Tower, and though Bessie was to leave the next day for
home, he did not go to Abingdon Road in the evening, but went to bed
instead, and deferred his good-by until the morrow. So Neil had the
field to himself, and made good use of his opportunity. Together he and
Bessie walked in the Kensington gardens until they were tired, and then
they sat side by side on one of the many seats in a retired part of the
grounds, and Neil told her how sorry he was that she was going home, and
how lonely he should be without her.

"Ye-es," Bessie said, doubtfully. "I think you will survive;" and then
he burst out, impulsively; "I say, Bessie, I don't want you to think me
a cad and a sneak, when you go back to Stoneleigh. Don't you suppose I'd
like to have taken you round just as well--yes, better than Jack,
confound him?"

"Why didn't you then? I would rather have gone with you," Bessie said,
beginning to relent at once toward the handsome, good-for-nothing Neil,
who had his arm around her, and was looking into her face with his dark,
expressive eyes.

"Why didn't I?" he answered. "I am going to tell you why I didn't, and
why Jack did. He is his own master, with money to do as he likes, and no
one to question or nag him at home; while I am _not_ my own master at
all, and have no money except what mother chooses to give me, and that
is not much. Father, you know, is poor, and mother holds the purse,
which is not a large one, and keeps me awful short at times, especially
after paying my Oxford bills and a few debts I contracted the last year.
There would have been no end of a row if I had asked her for money to
spend on you and your father."

"Does she then hate us so much?" Bessie asked, and Neil replied:

"She cannot hate you, as she does not know you; but, you see, she is
prejudiced against your mother and visits her anger upon your innocent
head. I wanted her to call upon you and invite you to our house, and I
wanted to take you to drive in the park, but I could not; my hands were
tied. Do you suppose it was pleasant for me to see Jack Trevellian doing
what I ought to have done?"

"No," Bessie replied, beginning to feel a great pity for Neil, who had
suffered so much. "No, and I am glad you have told me, for I thought--I
feared you were ashamed of us, and it hurt me a little."

There was a tremor in her voice which made Neil tighten the clasp of his
arm around her, while he bent his head so low that his hair touched her
forehead, as he exclaimed:

"Ashamed of you, Bessie! Never! How could I be ashamed of the dearest,
sweetest little cousin a man ever had? I tell you I am the victim of
circumstances!"

And bending his head still lower, "the victim of circumstances" kissed
the girlish lips, which kissed him back again in token of
reconciliation, and restored faith in him.

Poor, tired Jack, dreaming that night that he was a circus-rider and
jumping through a hoop for Bessie's pleasure, would have felt that all
his fatigue and back ache, and the plaster which caused him so much
discomfort, might have been spared, or at least were wasted on the girl
with whom the kiss given in the deepening twilight was more powerful
than all he had done for her, could he have known of that scene in the
gardens. But he did not know of it, and at a comparatively early hour
next morning he was at Mrs. Buncher's, where Bessie greeted him with her
sweetest smile and thanked him again for all he had done for them.

"Don't speak of it, I beg; it is so very little, I only wish there was
really something I could do to prove my willingness to serve you," he
said.

They were standing alone by the window looking into the street, and as
Jack said this there came a troubled look on Bessie's face, find after
waiting a moment, she said:

"There is something you can do, if you will: something which will please
me very much, and prove you the good man I believe you to be."

"Command me, and it is done," Jack said; and Bessie continued:

"If you ever meet mother again at Monte Carlo, or anywhere, don't play
with her for money; promise me this."

"I promise," Jack answered, unhesitatingly; and, emboldened by his
promptness, Bessie went on:

"And, oh, Mr. Trevellian, if you would never again play with any one for
money, even the smallest sum. It is gambling just the same; it is
wicked; it leads to so much that is bad. It was my grandfather's ruin,
and he knew it and repented bitterly, for it left his son nothing but
poverty, and that is why we are so poor, father and I; gambling did it
all."

There were tears in Bessie's eyes, and they went straight to Jack's
heart. He was not an inveterate gambler, though he had lost and won
large sums at Monte Carlo and Baden Baden, when the tables were open
there, and, like most Englishmen, he never played whist that something
was not staked; it gave zest to the game, which to him would be very
insipid without it: but Bessie's eyes could have made him face the
cannon's mouth, if need be, and he said to her at once:

"I promise that, too. I will never play again for money with anyone,
but for my reward you must let me visit you at Stoneleigh sometime."

"Oh, yes, you may," she answered, "but I warn you it is a poor place to
come to, with only old Anthony and Dorothy to do anything. I have to
work, and you may have to work, too, and do other things than mending
father's coat."

She spoke playfully, and Jack declared his readiness to sift cinders, or
scour knives, or do anything, if she would let him come. Just then Neil
arrived, not altogether pleased to find Jack there before him, standing
close to Bessie, who was looking very happy. The two young men went with
her to the station, where they vied with each other in showing her
attention. Jack held her traveling-bag, and her parasol and fan, and
band-box containing the white chip hat, and Neil held her shawl, and
umbrella, and paper bag of biscuits and seed cakes which Mrs. Buncher
had given her to eat upon the road, and when at last she was gone, and
they walked out of the station into the noisy street, each felt that the
brightness of the summer day had changed, and that something
inexpressibly sweet had been taken from them.




CHAPTER IX.

CHRISTMAS AT STONELEIGH.


Two years and a half after that visit to London, Bessie McPherson, now a
young lady of nearly eighteen, stood by the western window of the old
house at Stoneleigh reading a letter from Neil. He had been at
Stoneleigh several times since that summer in London, and these visits,
with his letters always so affectionate and bright, were the only breaks
in Bessie's monotonous life. Once Jack had been there for a few days, or
rather to the "George," where he slept and took his meals, spending the
rest of the time with Bessie, who interested him more and more, and from
whom he at last fled as from a positive danger. With his limited income
and his habits, he could not hope to marry, even if Bessie would have
joined her young life with his matured one, which he doubted, and, with
a great pang of regret he left her in the old Stoneleigh garden and did
not dare look back at her, sitting there with the troubled look on her
face, because he was leaving, lest he should turn back and, taking her
in his arms, say the words he must not say.

And so he went his way to busy London, and heard from Blanche that the
white-haired old earl in the north of England was dead, and the puny
Dick master in his place.

"Only two between you and a fortune," seemed whispered in his ear, and
with it came a thought of Bessie sitting under the old yew tree in the
summer sunshine and looking after him.

"Murderer!" he said to himself again, "do you wish Dick dead and Hal,
too, the finest fellow that ever lived, for the sake of a young girl
whose mind is full of a prig like Neil McPherson?"

And so he put all thoughts of Bessie aside, and wore mourning for his
great-uncle, and wrote a letter to the new heir, Sir Dick, and sent his
love to Flossie, and went no more to Stoneleigh. But Neil was coming
again, and his letter to Bessie was as follows:

    "LONDON, Dec, 20th, 18--,

    "MY SWEETEST COUSIN: and when I say that I mean it, for though
    Blanche is just as much my cousin as you are, and is in her way
    sweet as sugar, she bears no comparison to you, my little Dot, as I
    used to call you when you were a wee thing and let me kiss you as
    often as I liked. My Welsh rose I call you now, when you wear long
    dresses and will not let me kiss you, or at least will not kiss me
    as you did before you made that trip to London two years ago last
    June. Something happened to you then which shot you up into a woman,
    and I lost my little Bessie. But how absurdly I am writing, as if I
    were your lover, instead of your cousin, and as good as engaged to
    Blanche. I suppose mother would break her heart if I did not marry
    that £10,000 a year. I used to say I wouldn't, you know; but, _nous
    verrons_; what I wish to tell you now is, that I am coming to
    Stoneleigh for the holidays. Mother wishes me to go with her and
    Blanche to some stupid place near Edinburgh, and we have had a jolly
    row about it, but I prefer Stoneleigh and you; so you may expect me
    the 23rd, on the evening train from Bangor; and please tell old
    Dorothy to have a roasting fire in my room, which you know is
    something after the stable order, and oh, if she would have
    plum-pudding and chicken-pie for dinner! You see, I make myself
    quite at home at Stoneleigh, and I have a weakness for the good
    things of this world. I do not believe I was cut out for a poor man.
    I might be poor and honest, but never poor and happy.

    "By the way, I am to bring a friend with me, or rather he is to stop
    first at Carnarvon, to hunt up somebody by the name of Rogers, whom
    he is very anxious to find."

"Rogers--Rogers," Bessie repeated, thoughtfully. "Seems to me I have
heard that name before. Who is Neil's friend, I wonder? I am sorry he is
coming, for that means another fire, and another plate at table, and we
are so poor. Neil is right; it is not so easy to be poor and happy as
one might think," and the look of care habitual to Bessie's face
deepened upon it, for funds were very low at Stoneleigh just then.

It was weeks since they had received anything from Daisy, and Archie's
slender income would barely suffice for absolute necessaries, leaving
nothing for extra fires and extra mouths to feed with plum-pudding and
chicken-pie, and all the etceteras of a regular Christmas dinner such as
Neil would expect.

Resuming the letter at last, Bessie read on:

    "I have asked him to spend a day at Stoneleigh after he has finished
    his business in Carnarvon, and he has accepted and will be with us
    at Christmas. He is an American--Grey Jerrold, from Boston--and the
    right sort of a fellow, too: not a bit of a cad, if he did thrash me
    unmercifully the first time I ever saw him. He served me just right,
    and we are great friends now. He was at Eton with me and at Oxford,
    too, and took the wind out of all our sails in both places. No sneak
    about him, and though he seems more English than American from
    having lived with us so long, he would knock me down now if I were
    to say a word against his star spangled banner. His father and
    mother are in Boston, and he has crossed, I don't know how many
    times, mostly, I think, to see an old Aunt Hannah, whom he seems to
    worship, and whose photograph he actually kissed the day he got it
    at Eton. Such an old fashioned woman, too, as she must be, judging
    from her dress and hair; but such a sweet, patient, sorry face, with
    an expression about the mouth like you when 'la petite madame' is
    under discussion. I hear she is at Monte Carlo still. A friend saw
    her there flirting with and fleecing an Italian count, who has quite
    cut out that poodle of a Hardy."

"Oh, Neil! oh, mother!" Bessie cried, and the look about her mouth, of
which Neil had spoken, was pitiable to see, as the lips quivered and the
great tears sprang to her eyes and stood on her long lashes. "Fleecing
an Italian count!" she whispered. "If mother were to send us money now,
I do not believe I would touch it."

Then she read on:

    "You are sure to like Grey Jerrold, and if you do not fall in love
    with him I shall be surprised. He, of course, will surrender to you
    at once, and he is worthy of you. I am to make some stupid calls
    with my mother and Blanche so good-by till Tuesday night. I only
    live till then.

    "Your loving cousin,

    "NEIL."

For some time after finishing Neil's letter Bessie staid by the window,
very still and thoughtful, with a half-pleased, half-troubled look in
her young face. She was thinking of Neil's projected visit, and planning
how she could make him comfortable, and his friend.

"I can dispense with a fire in my room, and the boots I was going to
buy; these are not so very bad, though they do leak at times," and she
glanced down rather ruefully at the little shabby boots in which her
feet were incased, and which she had worn so long. "I hope Neil will not
notice them, he is so fastidious about such things," she said, with a
sigh; and then her thoughts went back to the summer when she had visited
London and met Jack Trevellian who had been so kind and done so much
for her.

Her mother had been home several times since then, and had spoken of
Jack as a noble fellow, with nothing small in his nature.

"But he is greatly changed from what he used to be," she said. "When I
first knew him at Monte Carlo, he was almost as regular at the tables as
I was myself, and a capital partner at cards; but now he never plays at
all, and did not even go inside the Casino, notwithstanding I did my
best to persuade him. I think there must be some woman concerned in the
change. Well she is fortunate if she gets Jack Trevellian. I wish
Bessie, you had more tact, for I know he was interested in you. He is
worth forty Neil McPhersons."

"Oh, mother, please don't talk like that," Bessie said, thinking to
herself that she could tell, if she would, why he did not play as
formerly, and feeling a great throb of gladness that he was keeping his
promise to her.

If he had been coming to Stoneleigh, Bessie would not have cared for her
surroundings, or her shabby shoes for he would not have noticed them, or
if he did, he would not have let her know it as Neil was sure to do.
Neil was very particular and critical, and had more than once hurt
Bessie cruelly with his criticism upon her dress. But then he was just
as severe upon Blanche, and that was some comfort, and with a sigh, as
she remembered what he had said of being as good as engaged, she put the
letter aside, and went to tell Dorothy of the expected guests and to
consult with her as to the ways and means of making them comfortable.

"Fortunately I have some money saved, of my own, and you must make it go
as far as possible, and be sure that we have a good Christmas dinner,
with plum-pudding and whipped cream," she said, as she emptied into the
old servant's hand what had been intended for boots and gloves, and a
Christmas present for her father.

And now the day when Neil was expected had come, and it lacked but a few
minutes of the time for the arrival of the train. Everything was ready,
and the old house wore quite a festive appearance with its holiday dress
of evergreens and scarlet berries, and all the flowers there were in
blossom in the conservatory, which opened from the dining room, and was
kept warm without extra expense. Everything which could be spared from
other parts of the house had been brought to Neil's room, where a
cheerful fire was burning in the grate, and where Bessie's own easy
chair, and couch, and bright Afghan were doing duty, and making the
place very comfortable and attractive.

During the two years and a half which had elapsed since Bessie's visit
to London, she had changed somewhat, and was more a woman than a child,
with a matured and, if possible, a sweeter expression in her face,
though there still lingered about her mouth that same sorry, patient
look which Jack Trevellian had wanted so much to kiss away. It was very
apparent this afternoon, as she stood by the window looking out upon the
snow which covered the garden and park, and made her shiver a little,
and think of the mother who should have been at home, lightening her
daughter's burden and cheering her lonely life.

"How happy the girls must be who have real mothers," Bessie thought, and
then as if the regret for the mother reflected upon the father, who was
so much to her, she went up to him by the fire, and stooping over him
kissed him tenderly.

She always did that when her mother was in her mind and by some subtle
intuition Archie had come to know it, and now his voice was very tender
and loving as he drew her down upon his knee, and stroking her hair,
said to her:

"Good little Bessie, what should I do without you? You are very lovely
to-night in your finery. Are you glad Neil is coming?"

"Yes, very glad," Bessie replied, blushing a little. "Very glad for
Neil, but I do not think I want that American here, too. I wish Neil had
left him from the programme."

"Oh, yes; I remember you told me that Neil said he was coming. They are
great friends, I believe," Archie said. Then, after a moment, he
continued: "I dare say he is a gentleman. You may like him very much."

"No, I shall not," Bessie rejoined, tapping the floor impatiently with
her boot, whose shabbiness French blacking could not wholly conceal, "I
shall be civil to him, of course, as Neil's friend, but I would rather
he did not come, spoiling everything. I see Neil so seldom that I want
him all to myself when he is here. He is the only cousin I have, you
know."

For a moment Archie was silent, and when at last he spoke, he said:

"Bessie, don't think too much of Neil. As I told you once in London, so
I tell you now. He is too selfish by nature, and too ambitious to care
particularly for anything which cannot advance his interests. He likes
you very much, no doubt, and if you had a fortune, I dare say he would
seek to make you his wife; but as you have not he will marry Blanche
Trevellian, who has."

"Yes, he will marry Blanche," Bessie said, softly, and the old, tired,
sorry look crept into her eyes and deepened about her mouth as she
thought: "If I had a fortune! Oh, that _if_! What a big one it is in my
case. And yet it is impressed upon me that somewhere in the world there
_is_ a fortune awaiting me; very far from here, it may be, but still
somewhere; but then, Neil will be gone before I get it, and I shall not
care."

And as it had done more than once before, a sharp pain cut through
Bessie's heart as she thought what life would be with Neil making no
part of it. So absorbed had she and her father been that neither of them
had heard the train as it glided swiftly by, but when, after a few
moments had elapsed, there was the stamping of feet outside, and a
cheery call to the house dog, who had set up a welcome bark, Bessie
sprang from her father's knee, exclaiming:

"That's Neil; he has come, and I am so glad."

She was out in the hall by this time, waiting expectantly, while Anthony
opened the door admitting Neil, who kissed Bessie twice, and told her
how glad he was to see her again, and how well her stuff dress of dark
claret became her, or would, if she had left off that knot of Scotch
plaid ribbon at the throat, which marred the effect.

Bessie's checks flushed at this criticism upon the ribbon she liked so
much, and had bought for this very occasion, with a view to please her
cousin. He was in very high spirits, it seemed to her, as she listened
to his gay badinage and laughter. But how handsome he was in his new
holiday suit, every item of which was faultless, and of the latest
style. If his mother stinted him in other ways, she surely did not where
his wardrobe was concerned, and he had the reputation of being one of
the best dressed young men in London.

When dinner was over, and he had finished his cigar which he smoked in
the presence of Bessie, she asked him of the American, who was coming
the next evening.

"Oh, yes, Grey Jerrold," Neil said, "and the finest specimen of a Yankee
you ever saw."

"I don't believe I like Yankees," Bessie said curtly, and Neil replied:

"You will like this one; you cannot help it, every body likes him, from
the shabbiest old woman in the railway carriage to the prettiest girl in
Piccadilly. Perhaps it was a liberty I ought not to have taken, inviting
him here without consulting you first, but I wanted you to see him, and
him to see you," and there was a vehemence in Neil's voice and manner
which Bessie could not understand. "He is rich, or will be by and by,"
Neil said. "And the most generous chap I ever saw. He was always helping
us out of scrapes at school. He has a rich aunt in America, who keeps
him well supplied with money, besides what his father gave him when he
came of age."

"What did you say he was doing in Carnarvon?" Bessie asked, and Neil
replied:

"Hunting up some old woman, or young woman, I don't know which, as I
never paid much attention to what he did say about it, I believe,
though, there is some money in the case. I wish it was for me," Neil
said, and then suddenly he sank into a thoughtful, abstracted mood, from
which he did not rouse till the clock struck ten and it was time to say
good-night. "I have not been very good company for the last hour, I have
been worried lately and am not quite myself," he said to Bessie, when
she asked if he were ill and if there was anything she could do for him
or send to his room.

And Neil had been worried and exasperated and wrought upon until he was
half beside himself. His mother had wished him to accompany her and
Blanche to the house of a friend near Edinburgh, and when he refused,
saying he preferred to go to Stoneleigh, there had been a jolly row, as
he expressed it, and his mother had charged him with his preference for
the daughter of that bold adventuress, and had told him decidedly that
if he ever dared to marry her he should never touch a shilling of her
money either during her life-time or after, for once assured of the
marriage she would so arrange her matters that he would be as great a
beggar as Archie McPherson himself.

"A family of paupers!" she said, scornfully. "Your father has nothing to
give you; absolutely nothing, and you can yourself judge, how, with your
tastes and habits, you will like living at Stoneleigh with two meals a
day, as I hear they sometimes do, blacking your own boots and building
your own fires."

Here Neil winced, for he knew very well that he had no fancy for
poverty, even if Bessie shared it with him But he told his mother he
had, and consigned Blanche's ten thousand a year to a place where the
gold might be melted, and said he loved Bessie McPherson better than
anything in life, and should marry her if he pleased in spite of a
hundred mothers. But he knew he should not--knew he could not face the
reality when it came to the point. He was too dependent upon what wealth
would bring him to throw it away for one girl, even if that girl were
Bessie, whom he loved with all the intensity of his selfish
nature--loved so much that for an hour or so after his interview with
his mother, he balanced the two questions, Blanche with ten thousand a
year, or Bessie with nothing. Naturally Blanche turned the scale, and
then to himself, he said:

"I will go to Stoneleigh and live for a few days in Bessie's presence,
and then I will say good-by forever and marry Blanche as mother wishes
me to do. She is not so very bad except for her eyebrows and that horrid
drawl. But Bessie, oh, Bessie, how can I give her up!" and the young
man's heart cried out in pain for the sweet young girl he had loved all
his life, and who, he was sure loved him. To do Neil justice, this was
the bitterest drop in the cup--the knowing that Bessie, too, would
suffer. "She has enough to bear," he said, "without an added drop from
me, I wish she would get in love with some one else and throw me
overboard. I believe I could bear it better. There's Jack he was
awfully sweet on her in London, but he has only been to see her once
since. He is too poor to marry, and there is no one else--yes, by Jove,
there is!" and Neil started to his feet. "There is Grey Jerrold. He is
just the man for Bessie to fall in love with if she could see him, and
I'll bring that about."

It may seem strange that one so utterly selfish as Neil McPherson should
have devised this plan to help him in his dilemma, but this in fact was
only another phase of his selfishness. He knew it was impossible for him
to marry Bessie, and felt that it was also impossible to give her up
without other aid than his own feeble will. If she could prefer some one
else to himself, it would be a help, however much his self-love might be
wounded, and if another than himself must taste the sweetness he so
coveted he would far rather that other should be Grey Jerrold, an
American, even though he bore the rose away to foreign soil, than to
have one of his own countrymen flaunting his happiness in his face,
Bessie and Grey were suited to each other, he thought, and he would
bring them together; so, when he heard from Grey of his intended trip to
Carnarvon, he suggested that he defer it until the holidays and spend a
day or two at Stoneleigh. Then he wrote to Bessie that he was as good as
engaged to Blanche, and that she would probably fall in love with Grey,
who was sure to do so with her. This done, he began to anticipate the
visit, which he said to himself was to be his last, and from which he
meant to get all the happiness possible, he would kiss Bessie as often
as he liked; he would hold her hands in his, the dear little hands which
had worked so hard, but, which nevertheless, were so soft and pretty; he
would look into the innocent blue eyes and see them kindle and droop
beneath his gaze, and then there should be one long, never to be
forgotten walk by themselves across the suspension bridge, through the
straggling old town, and along the road by the river toward Beaumaris,
and he would tell her everything, all his love for her and its utter
hopelessness because they were both so poor, and he would say good-by
forever, and bid her marry Grey Jerrold, and so remove temptation from
him and make it easier for him to be true to Blanche.

It was much easier for Neil to form this plan than to be satisfied with
it, and during the few days which elapsed before he started for
Stoneleigh he was cross and irritable and even rude at times both to his
mother and Blanche, the latter of whom finally treated him with a cold
indifference which made him fear a little for the ten thousand.

"What if she should take the bits in her teeth and throw me overboard?"
he thought, and at the very last, he changed his tactics and devoted
himself to the heiress with an assiduity which left her little doubt of
his intentions. Still, to her he did not speak, though to his mother he
said, half irritably, as if it were something wrung from him against his
will:

"Don't trouble yourself. I intend to marry Blanche in my own good time;
but I will not be hurried, and am going to Stoneleigh first."

And he went to Stoneleigh and tried all the way there to think of Bessie
as she looked in the park, in the old faded gown with the disfiguring
puffs; tried to make himself believe that she had no manner, no style,
and would not pass for a great lady among people city bred; that she was
better suited to some quiet home such as Grey Jerrold might give her,
were he happy enough to win her. Neil had no doubt that Grey would try
to win her when once he had seen her, and he began at last to feel sorry
that he had invited his friend to Stoneleigh, and to have doubts as to
his ability to give Bessie up even to him. He was sure of it when he
reached Stoneleigh and saw her with the brightness on her face and the
sparkle in her eye as she welcomed him. She might not be as elegant or
as stylish as Blanche, who had lived in the city all her life, but she
was inexpressibly sweet and womanly, and there was in every movement a
grace and quiet dignity which stamped her as a lady. And Neil recognized
it as he never had before, and fought the battle over again all through
the silent night, and was still fighting it in the morning when he went
down to breakfast and looked at Bessie as she poured his coffee, in her
gray dress and pretty white muslin apron, with the daintily frilled
pockets, and just the corner of a blue-bordered handkerchief showing in
one of them. Neil liked the dress and the effect of the blue
handkerchief but he did not like the apron, it made her look so like a
housemaid, and he told her so when breakfast was over and they stood a
moment alone by the fire.

Reddening a little, Bessie answered him, laughingly; "Yes, you told me
once before that you did not like my apron, and I know it would be out
of place on your mother or Blanche, but it suits me, for you see I _am_
housemaid here, and clear my own table and wash my own silver and china.
Dorothy is old and has the rheumatism in her feet, and I must help; so,
Mr. Aristocrat, if you do not wish to see me degrade myself, just go and
take a walk, and when you come back the obnoxious apron shall be laid
aside and we will practice that song you brought me."

Neil did not go out and walk, but staid in the dining-room and smoked
his cigar, and looked at Bessie as she cleared away the breakfast dishes
and washed the silver and china, with her sleeves drawn half-way to her
elbows, showing her round, white arms.

"Yes, she is just suited to America, where, I believe, the women all
wear aprons and wash their own dishes," Neil thought, as he watched her
with a strange feeling in his heart of pain and happiness; happiness
that for a few days at least she was his to look at, to love, to caress;
pain that the days were so few and so short when he must leave her.

And then there arose before him, as in a vision, a picture of a quiet
home amid green hedge-rows and sunny lanes, not a home such as Blanche's
would be, with gorgeous surroundings and liveried servants everywhere,
but such a home as makes a man better for living in it; a home where the
housewifely Bessie was the presiding goddess, flitting about just as she
was doing now, putting away the silver and china, brushing up the
hearth, moving a chair here and another there, watering her pots of
flowers in the conservatory, tea-roses and carnations and heliotrope and
lilies all in bloom and filling the room with sweet perfume as if it
were the summer-time, instead of chill December with its biting blasts
sweeping against the windows.

"There!" Bessie said, at last, removing her apron, pulling down her
sleeves, and smoothing her bright wavy hair, "I have dismissed the
housemaid, and now I am ready to sing for you, or play chess, or do
whatever you like."

But Neil was in no mood for singing or playing chess, or even talking
much, and his fit of abstraction lasted all day, or until late in the
afternoon, when Bessie began to speak of getting herself in readiness
for Grey, who was to come in the evening train from Carnarvon. Then Neil
roused, and as if he had nerved himself for the sacrifice, manifested a
great deal of interest with regard to Bessie's personal appearance.

"I want you to get yourself up stunningly," he said, "so as to make a
good first appearance. I have told Grey so much about you that he must
not be disappointed."

"Ridiculous! I shall wear just what I wore yesterday, bow and all, for I
like it," Bessie said, with a little defiant toss of her head.

She, too, had been thinking while Neil sat so silent and moody by the
fire, and had decided that he had greatly changed for the worse since
she had seen him last--that he was hard to please, moody, exacting, and
quite too much given to criticising her and her dress.

"As if it is any of his business what I wear," she thought, and she took
a kind of exultant satisfaction in fastening on the knot of ribbon he
had condemned and which really was very becoming to her plain, dark
dress.

"I suppose, Mr. Grey Jerrold, I must waste a clean collar and a pair of
cuffs on you, though that will be so much more for me to iron next
week," she said, as she stood before the mirror in her room, which was
to be given to the coming guest, "I hope, sir, you will appreciate all I
am doing for you, for I assure you it is no small matter to turn out
from my comfortable quarters into that barn of a room where the wind
blows a hurricane and the rats scurry over the floor. Ugh! how I dread
it, and _you_, too!" she continued, shaking her head at the imaginary
Grey, who stood before her mind's eye, black-eyed, black-whiskered,
black-faced, and a very giant in proportions, as she fancied all
Americans to be.

Her toilet completed, she removed from the room everything which she
thought would betray the fact that it was her apartment, and carried
them with a shiver to the chamber facing the north, where the rats
scurried over the floor at night, and the wind blew a hurricane.

"There! I am ready for your Pythias! Do you think I shall pass muster?"
she said to Neil, as she entered the dining-room where he was sitting.

It would indeed have been a very censorious, fault-finding man who could
have seen aught amiss in the beautiful young girl, plain as her dress
might be, and for answer to her question, Neil stood up and kissed her,
saying as he did so:

"He will think you perfect, though I don't like the ribbon, I don't like
any color about you except your hair and eyes. I wish you would take it
off."

"Mr. Jerrold may think differently. I am dressed for him, and as I like
it I mean to wear it," Bessie answered, curtly, but with a bright smile,
as she looked into Neil's face.

"Oh, well; _chacun a son gout_," he said, consulting his watch, and
adding: "It is time I was starting for the station; the train is due in
fifteen minutes."

When he was gone Bessie began to feel a little nervous with regard to
the stranger coming among them. Hitherto she had thought only of the
extra expense and the trouble he would give old Dorothy, whose feet and
ankles were badly swollen and paining her so much.

"I may have to cook and serve the Christmas dinner myself," she said,
"and I don't mind the work; only I do not want this American from
Boston, where the women are so full of brains, to think me a mere
dishwasher and chimney-sweep. I wonder if he is half as nice as Neil
says he is, and if I shall like him. Of course I sha'n't, but I shall
treat him well for Neil's sake, and be so glad when he has gone."

Then she proceeded to lay the table for supper, as they usually dined in
the middle of the day. Dorothy's feet were more active then, and Archie
preferred an early dinner. Everything was in readiness at last; the
bread and the butter and the jam, with cold chicken and ham, and the
kettle singing on the hearth; the curtains drawn and the bright fire
making shadows on the wall and falling upon the young girl, who, as her
ear caught the sound of footsteps without, ran to the window, and
parting the heavy curtains, looked out into the darkness so that the
first glimpse Grey Jerrold had of her was of her fair, eager face framed
in waves of golden brown hair, and pressed against the window pane in
the vain effort to see the dreaded American.




CHAPTER X.

GREY.


Between the man of twenty-three and the boy of fourteen, who had knelt
upon the snow in the leafless woods and asked God to forgive him for his
grandfather's sin, and had pledged himself to undo as far as was
possible the wrong to others that sin had caused, there was the
difference of nine years of growth, and culture, and experience, and
knowledge of the world; but otherwise the boy and the man were the same,
for as the Grey of fourteen had been frank, and truthful, and generous,
and wholly unselfish, with a gentleness in his nature like that of a
tender, loving woman, so was the Grey of twenty-three whom we last saw
upon the steamer which was taking him away from home and the lonely
woman watching so tearfully upon the wharf, and feeling that with his
going her joyless life was made more desolate.

Since that time there had been a year's travel upon the Continent with
his parents, and then he had entered at Eton, where he renewed his
acquaintance with Neil McPherson, between whom and himself there sprung
up a friendship which nothing had weakened as yet. Several times he had
been a guest in Neil's home, where Lady Jane treated him with the utmost
civility, and admitted that for an American he really was refined and
gentlemanly. He knew Jack Trevellian, and Blanche, and all Neil's
intimate friends, and had the _entree_ to the same society with them,
whenever he chose to avail himself of it, which was not very often. He
was in Europe for study, he said, and not for society, and he devoted
himself to his books with an energy and will which put him at the head
of his class in Eton, and won him an enviable reputation for scholarship
at Oxford, where he had now been for nearly four years, and where he
intended to remain until his Aunt Lucy, and possibly his Aunt Hannah,
crossed the sea and joined him for an extended tour.

Then he was going home for good to settle down and marry, he said, for
in all Grey's dreams of the future there was always the picture of a
happy home with some fair, sweet-faced girl in it, reigning equally as
mistress with the dear Aunt Hannah, still living her solitary life in
the old farm house, and keeping watch over that hidden grave under the
bedroom floor, and laying up year by year the interest on the gold which
was one day to go to the heirs of Elizabeth Rogers, of Carnarvon, if
they could be found. But could they? That was the question both she and
Grey asked themselves as the years went on and no trace was discovered
of any such person either in or around Carnarvon, for Grey had been
there more than once, and with all due precaution had inquired of
everybody for the woman, Elizabeth Rogers, and finally, as he grew a
little bolder, for Joel Rogers himself, who went to America many years
before. But all to no avail; both Joel and Elizabeth were myths, and the
case was getting hopeless.

Still, Grey did not despair, and resolved that during the holidays he
would go again to the old Welsh town and try what he could do, and so it
came about that he accompanied Neil as far as Carnarvon, where he
proposed to spend a day and then go over to Stoneleigh on Christmas Eve,
more to please Neil, who had urged him so strongly to stop there, than
for any particular satisfaction it would be to him to pass the day with
strangers, who might or might not care to see him. He knew there was a
cousin Bessie, a girl of wondrous beauty, if Neil was to be believed,
and he remembered to have heard of her, years ago, when he was a boy and
first met Neil McPherson at Melrose. Faint memories, too, he had of
hearing her talked about at the memorable Thanksgiving dinner which had
preceded his grandfather's death and his own sickness, when they said he
had asked Miss McPherson to send for her and stuff her with mince pie,
as a recompense for the many times she had gone hungry to bed because
there was not money enough to buy dinner for three. And all this came
back to him as he stood in the station in Carnarvon waiting for the
train.

"She must be a young lady now seventeen or eighteen years old," he
thought; "and Neil says she is beautiful. But I dare say she is like
most English girls--with a giggle and a drawl and a supreme contempt for
anything outside the United Kingdom. I fancy, too, she is tall and thin,
with sharp elbows and big feet, like many of her sisters. I wonder what
she will think of me. People say I am more English than American, which
I don't like, for if there is a loyal son of Uncle Sam in this world I
am he. I can't help this confounded foreign accent which I have picked
up from being over here so long, and I do not know as I wish to help it.
Perhaps it may help me with Miss Bessie, as well as my English cut
generally," and Grey glanced at himself in the dingy little glass to see
how he did look.

What he saw was a broad-shouldered, finely-formed young man, who stood
so erect, that he seemed taller than he really was. A face which
strangers would trust without a moment's hesitancy; large dark-blue
eyes, thick brown hair just inclined to curl at the ends; and a smile
which would have made the plainest face handsome and which was Grey's
chief point of attraction, if we except his voice, which, though rich
and full, was very sweet, and expressive of the genuine interest and
sympathy he felt for every human being in distress or otherwise. No
tired, discouraged mother in a railway car, trying to hush her crying
infant, would ever fear that he would be annoyed or wish her and her
child in Jericho. On the contrary, she would, if necessary, ask him to
hold her baby for a moment, and the child would go to him
unhesitatingly, so great was the mesmeric power he exercised over his
fellow-creatures. This influence or power was inborn, and he could no
more have helped it than he could have helped his heartbeats. But, added
to this, was a constant effort on his part to make those with whom he
came in contact happy, to sympathize with them in their griefs, to help
them in their needs, to sacrifice his own feelings to their pleasure,
for in this way he felt that he was in part atoning for the wrong done
by the poor old man dead long ago and forgotten by nearly all who had
known him.

Such was the Grey Jerrold whom Neil McPherson met at the Menai station
and escorted along the road to Stoneleigh.

"I should have driven out for you, only there is no carriage. I think I
told you that Mr. Archie McPherson is awfully poor," he explained
apologetically as he saw Grey pull his fur cap over his ears, for the
wind was blowing a gale and drifting the snow in their faces.

"I do not think you ever told me in so many words that they were very
poor, but I had an impression that they were not rich," Grey said,
adding, "I prefer to walk, and rather enjoy battling with a
north-wester: it takes me back to New England, the very land of snows
and storms."

They were in the park by this time, nearing the house, when suddenly the
curtains of a window parted, letting out a flood of light into the
darkness and Grey saw for an instant pressed against the pane a face
which made his heart throb quickly with a kind of glad surprise as if it
were a face he had seen before, while with it came a thought of his Aunt
Hannah, and the lonely old house in the pasture land in far-off
Allington. A moment later, and the face was looking up to his with a
half fearful curious expression, which was, however, changed to one of
great gladness as Bessie met his winning smile and the kind eyes bent so
searchingly upon her. She had no fear or dread of him now, and she gave
him her hand most cordially and bade him welcome to Stoneleigh with a
warmth which made him feel at home, and put him at his ease.

"Perhaps you would like to go to your room at once, and Neil will show
you the way," she said to him; then, in an aside to Neil, "my room, you
know, at the head of the stairs."

Neil looked at her in surprise, while a cloud gathered upon his brow.
That Bessie should give her room to Grey seemed to him absurd, though he
never stopped to ask himself where she could put him if not there Neil
knew perfectly well the capabilities of the old stone house, and that
spare rooms were not as plenty as blackberries, but so long as he was
not incommoded it was no business of his to inquire into matters; nor
could he understand that an extra fire even for a day was a heavy drain
on Bessie's purse. But Grey's quick ear caught Bessie's whispered words,
and before he entered the warm, pretty room at the head of the stairs he
knew it belonged to her, and guessed why she had given it to him. Under
any circumstances he would have known by certain unmistakable signs that
it was a young girl's apartment into which he was ushered, and after
Neil left him he looked about him with a kind of awe at the
chintz-covered furniture, the white curtains at the window, and the
pretty little toilet table with its hanging glass in the center, and its
coverings of pink and white muslin.

Just then, through the door, which had inadvertently been left a little
ajar, he caught the sound of voices in the hall below, Neil's voice and
Bessie's and Neil was saying to her, disapprovingly:

"Why did you give your room to Grey? Was it necessary?"

"Yes, Neil; there was no other comfortable place for him; the north room
is so large and the chimney smokes so we could never get it warm,"
Bessie said, and Neil continued:

"And so you are to sleep there and catch your death-cold?"

"Not a bit of it," Bessie replied. "Dorothy will warm the bed with her
big warming-pan and I shall not mind it in the least. I am never cold."

"Well, I think it a shame!" Neil said, feeling more annoyed that Grey
was to sleep in Bessie's room, than that Bessie was to pass the night in
the great, cheerless north chamber with only old Dorothy's warming-pan
for comfort.

But it never occurred to him that he could give Grey his room and
himself take the cold and the dreariness of the north room, nor yet that
he could share his bed with Grey. He never thought for others when the
thinking conflicted with himself, and returning to the dining-room he
sat down by the fire with anything but a happy expression on his face,
as he wished that he had not invited Grey to Stoneleigh.

Something in the expression of Bessie's and Grey's faces as they looked
at each other had disturbed him, for he had read undisguised admiration
in the one, and confidence and trust in the other, and knew that there
were already sympathy and accord between them, and that they were sure
to be fast friends at least, just as he had told himself he wished them
to be.

Meanwhile Grey was thinking, as he made his toilet for supper, and as a
result of his thoughts he at last rang the bell which brought old
Dorothy to him.

"My good woman," he said, flashing upon her the smile which always won
those on whom it fell, and drawing her inside the door which he shut
cautiously, "My good woman, I do not wish to be particular or
troublesome, but really I should like a room without a fire, the colder
the better. One to the north will suit me, if there is such a one. No
matter for the furniture; a bed and wash-stand are all I require. You
see, I have so much health and superfluous heat that I like to be cool;
and then I have the--" he stopped short here, for he could not quite
deviate from the truth so far as to say he actually had the asthma, so
he added, in an undertone, "If I had the asthma I could not breathe, you
know, in this small room, pretty as it is, and upon my word it is
lovely. Have you no larger chamber which I can take?"

"Ye-es," Dorothy said, slowly, with a throb of joy, as she reflected
that her young mistress might not be deprived of her comfortable
quarters after all. "There is a big chamber to the north, cold enough
for anybody, but Miss Bessie got this ready for you. She will not like
you to change. Do you have the _tisick_ very bad?"

Grey did not answer this question, but began to gather up his brushes
and his combs, and putting them into his valise, he said, "I want that
north room; take me there, please, and say nothing to your mistress."

Dorothy knew this last was impossible; she should be obliged to tell
Bessie; but she did not oppose the young man whose manner was so
masterful, and whom she led to the great, cheerless room with its smoky
chimney down which the winter wind was roaring with a dismal sound,
while across the hearth a huge rat ran as they entered it.

"'Tis a sorry place, and you'll be very cold, but I'll warm your bed
and give you plenty of blankets and hot water in the morning," Dorothy
said, as she hastily gathered up the few articles belonging to Bessie,
who had transferred them from her own room to this.

"I shall sleep like a top," Grey replied. "Much better than by the fire.
This suits me perfectly, and the cold is nothing to what America can
do."

He was very reassuring; and wholly deceived by his manner, Dorothy
departed and left him to himself.

"Whew!" he said, as a gust of wind stronger than usual struck the
windows and puffed down the chimney, almost knocking over the
fire-board. "This is a clipper and no mistake. And what an old stable of
a room it is, and what a place for that dainty little Bessie to be in.
She would be frozen solid before morning. I guess I shall sleep in my
overcoat and boots. What a lovely face she has, and how it reminds me of
somebody--I don't know whom, unless it is Aunt Hannah, whose face I
seemed to see right side by side with Bessie. They must be awfully poor,
and I wish I had brought her something better for a Christmas present
than this jim-crack," and opening his valise he took out a pretty little
inlaid work-box fitted up with all the necessary appliances, even to a
gold thimble.

Remembering the Christmas at home when a present was as much a part of
that day as his breakfast, Grey had bought the box in London as a gift
to Bessie, and when he caught a glimpse, as he did, of the worn basket,
with its spools and scissors and colored yarns for darning, which
Dorothy gathered up among other articles belonging to Bessie, he was
glad he had made the choice he did. But now, as he surveyed the
apartment and felt how very poor his host and daughter must be, he
wished that he could give them something better than this fanciful box,
which could neither feed nor keep them warm.

As he had finished his toilet in Bessie's room there was nothing now for
him to do except to give an extra twist to his cravat, run his fingers
through his brown hair and then he was ready for the dining-room, where
he found Bessie alone. As a matter of course, Dorothy had gone to Bessie
and told her of the exchange, which delighted her far more than it did
her mistress.

"Mr. Jerrold in that cold, dreary room!" Bessie exclaimed. "Oh,
Dorothy, why did you allow it, and what must he think of us?"

"I could not help myself, darling, for he would have his way," Dorothy
replied. "He was that set on the cold room that you couldn't move him a
jot. His breathing apparatus is out of killer; he has the _tisick_ awful
and can't breathe in a warm room. I shall give him some _cubebs_ to
smoke to-morrow. And don't you worry; he won't freeze. I'll put a bag of
hot water in the bed. He is a very nice young gentleman, if he is an
American."

Bessie knew she could not help herself, but there was a troubled look on
her face when Grey came in, and, approaching her as she stood by the
fire, made some casual remark about the unusual severity of the weather
for the season.

"Yes, it is very cold," she said, adding quickly, as she looked up at
him: "Oh, Mr. Jerrold, Dorothy has told me, and I am so sorry. You do
not know how cold that north chamber is, and we cannot warm it if we
try, the chimney smokes so badly. You will be so uncomfortable there.
You might let the fire go down in m--, in the other room, if the heat
affects you. Dorothy says you suffer greatly with asthma."

"Yes--no," Grey replied, confusedly, scarcely willing to commit himself
again to the asthma. "I shall not mind the cold at all. I am accustomed
to it. You must remember I come from the land of ice and snow. You have
no idea what blizzards America is capable of getting up, and ought to
hear how the wind can howl and the snow drift about an old farm-house in
a rocky pasture land, which I would give much to see to-night."

There was a tone of regret in his rich, musical voice, and forgetting
that Neil had said he was from Boston. Bessie said to him:

"Is that farm-house your home?"

"Oh, no; my home proper is in Boston," he answered her, "but I have
spent some of my happiest days in that house, and the memory of it and
the dear woman who lives there is the sweetest of my life, and the
saddest, too," he added, slowly; for, right in Bessie's blue eyes,
looking at him so steadily, he seemed to see the hidden grave, and for a
moment all the old bitter shame and humiliation which had once weighed
him down so heavily, and which, naturally, the lapse of years had tended
to lighten, came back to him in the presence of this young girl who
seemed so inextricably mixed up with everything pertaining to his past.

It was like some new place which we sometimes come suddenly upon, with a
strange feeling that we have seen it before, though when we cannot tell;
so Bessie impressed Grey as a part of the tragedy enacted in the old New
England house many, many years ago, and covered up so long. He almost
felt that she had been there with him and that now she was standing by
the hidden grave and stretching her hand to him across it with an offer
of help and sympathy. And so strong was this impression that he actually
lifted his right hand an instant to take in it the slender one resting
on the mantel, as Bessie talked to him.

"What would she say if she knew?" he thought, feeling that it would be
easy to tell her about it,--feeling that she was one to trust even unto
death.

Bessie was interested in Grey, and already felt the wonderful mesmeric
influence he exercised over all who came in contact with him. In the
_salons_ of fashion, in the halls of Eaton and Oxford, in the railway
car, or in the privacy of domestic life, Grey's presence was an
all-pervading power, or as an old woman whom he had once befriended
expressed it:

"He was like a great warm stove in a cold room."

And Bessie felt the warmth, and was glad he was there, and said to him:

"I wish you would tell me about that house among the rocks and the woman
who lives there, I am sure I should like her, and I know so little of
America or the American people. You are almost the first I have ever
seen."

Before Grey could answer her Neil came in, and as supper was soon after
served, no further allusion was made to America until the table was
cleared away, and the party of four were sitting around the fire, Archie
in his accustomed corner with Bessie at his side, her hand on the arm of
his chair and her head occasionally resting lovingly against his
shoulder. Neil was opposite, while Grey sat before the fire, with now
and then a shiver running down his back as the rising wind crept into
the room, even through the thick curtains which draped the rattling
windows behind him. But Grey did not care for the cold. His thoughts
were across the sea, in the house among the rocks, and he was wondering
if his Aunt Hannah was alone that Christmas Eve, and was thinking just
how dark, and ghostly and cold was the interior of that bedroom, whose
door was seldom opened, and where no one had ever been since his
grandfather's death except his Aunt Hannah and himself. As if divining
his thoughts, Bessie said to him: "I wish you would tell us about that
house among the rocks. Is it very old?"

"Yes, one of the oldest in Allington," Grey replied, and instantly
Archie roused from his usual apathetic State and repeated:

"Allington? Did you say Allington, in Massachusetts?"

"Yes," Grey replied. "Allington, in Massachusetts; about forty miles or
so from Boston. Do you know the place?"

"My aunt lives there--the woman for whom Bessie was named, Miss Betsey
McPherson. Do you know her?"

"Yes, I used to know her well when I was so often in Allington before my
grandfather died," Grey replied, and Neil said to him:

"What manner of woman is she? Something of a shrew, I fancy. I saw her
once when I was a boy, and she boxed my ears because I called her old
Bet Buttermilk, and she said that I and all the English were fools,
because I asked her if there were any wildcats in the woods behind her
house."

"Served you right," Grey said, laughingly, and then continued; "She is
rather eccentric, I believe, but highly respected in town. My Aunt Lucy
is very fond of her. Did you ever see her?" and he turned to Bessie, who
replied:

"I saw her once at Aberystwyth, when I was a child; and she afterwards
sent me this turquois ring, the only bit of jewelry I own," and Bessie
held to the light her hand on which shone the ring Daisy had unwillingly
given up to her on the occasion of her last visit to Stoneleigh.

For a long time they sat before the fire talking of America and the
places Grey had visited in Europe, and it was rather late when the party
finally retired for the night, Neil going to his warm, comfortable room
facing the south, and Grey to his cheerless one facing the north, with
only the cold and the damp, and the rats for his companions, if we
except the bag of hot water he found in his bed, on which Dorothy had
put woolen sheets and which she had warmed thoroughly with her big
warming-pan.

"This is not very jolly, but I am glad I am here instead of Bessie,"
Grey thought, and undressing himself more quickly than he had ever
undressed before, he plunged into the bed which was really warm and
comfortable, and was soon wrapped in the deep sleep which comes to
perfect health and a good conscience.




CHAPTER XI.

CHRISTMAS DAY.


When Grey awoke the next morning there was a little pile of snow on the
foot of his bed, which stood near a window, and more on the hearth,
which had sifted down the chimney, while the wind was, if possible,
blowing harder than on the previous night.

"Whew!" Grey said, as he rubbed his cold nose, "I believe this beats
Allington! How shall I ever get myself together?"

Just then Anthony came in with jugs of hot water and a huge soapstone on
which he said the young man was to stand while he dressed himself.

"Sharp weather this, even for Wales!" he began, as he lingered a little
and put back the curtains to admit more light.

"Sorry, sir, I cannot make you a fire. Hope the cold did not keep you
awake?"

"Never slept better in my life, I did not mind the cold at all," Grey
said, and Anthony continued:

"Yes, you like air, _Tisicky_ my old woman says, and she sent me out
last night for a pipe and some cubebs which you are to smoke three times
a day. Nothing like cubebs for your disorder. Had it long?"

"Thank you, no, sir; you are very kind," Grey said, with a little groan,
as he wondered if the confounded things would make him sick, inasmuch as
he had never smoked in his life.

Making his toilet with all speed, and finding the soapstone and hot
water great comforts to him, he hastened down to the dining-room, where
he found Neil, looking rather tired and worn, and out of sorts, as if
there was something on his mind.

Neil had not slept well at all, though, after Archie, he had the best
bed and the best room in the house, and, his fire burned all night and
was replenished by Anthony, early in the morning. He had been restless,
and nervous, and had lain awake for hours, watching the flickering
firelight on the wall, thinking of Bessie, and wondering if she would
not be frozen stiff before morning.

He had known nothing of the exchange of rooms, and when he heard
footsteps in the north chamber, which adjoined his, though it did not
communicate with it, he supposed it was Bessie, and was surprised that
she stepped so heavily, and moved the chairs with such a jerk.

At last, however, all was still; Bessie was asleep, no doubt, and did
not feel the cold or hear the wind as he heard it moaning through the
old yew trees, and screaming around the house, as if it were some
restless spirit trying to get in. Suddenly, however, there was a sound
which made Neil start, and listen, and raise himself on his elbow to
make sure he was not mistaken.

"No I am not" he whispered to himself. "It is a _snore_," and he gave a
groan as he thought: "Bessie snoring! and such snores! who would imagine
that she could do anything so vulgar and unlady-like! Heavens and earth,
it is enough to raise the rafters! If I did not know Bessie was in
there. I'd swear it was a man. How can a girl--and Bessie of all
girls--go it like that?" and the fastidious Neil stopped his ears with
his fingers to shut out the obnoxious sounds which grew louder as Grey's
sleep became more profound.

There was a feeling of keen disappointment in Neil's heart, a sense of
something lost, or as if in some way he had been wronged, and then he
thought of Blanche, and wondered if she snored, and how he could find
out.

"It would be a tearer if she did, she is so much larger and coarser
every way than Bessie," he thought, as he finally put the pillow over
his head so that he could not hear.

At last, however, the sound ceased as Grey, who only snored when he was
very tired, half awoke and turned upon his side, nor was it resumed
again. But Neil could not sleep for thinking of it, and when at last he
did fall into a restless slumber, he awoke suddenly with the impression
that Bessie was frozen to death in the next room, and that Grey Jerrold
was trying to bring her to life and calling her his darling.

Altogether it was a bad night for Neil, and he was glad when Anthony
came in and he knew he might get up. And thus it chanced that he was
first in the dining-room, where he sat, gloomily regarding the fire,
when Grey came in, followed in a moment by Bessie, whose sweet girlish
lips, as she bade merry Christmas to the young men, did not look as if
they could ever have emitted the sounds which were still ringing in
Neil's ears, and making him shudder a little.

"Oh, Mr. Jerrold," she said to Grey after the morning greetings were
over, "didn't you almost freeze last night in that cold north room? I
thought of you when I was awake and heard the wind howl so dismally."

"Never slept better in my life, I assure you; and I was far better
pleased with the cold room than I should have been with the warm one,"
Grey replied.

"Wha-at!" Neil exclaimed. "Did _you_ occupy the north room adjoining
mine?"

"Yes," was Grey's reply; and crossing the hearth swiftly to where Bessie
stood, Neil kissed her twice, as he said.

"I am so glad!"

If Grey occupied the room, then it was Grey who snored, and not Bessie,
who again went into the scales with the ten thousand a year, and who
looked up surprised, and a little displeased at this salute before a
stranger.

Grey had wondered when he ought to present his Christmas gift, and
glanced around the room to see if Neil's was visible; but it was not,
and he concluded to wait the progress of events.

Breakfast was late that morning, for Dorothy's rheumatic feet and ankles
were worse than usual, and locomotion was difficult and painful; but
with Bessie's assistance it was ready at last, and the family were just
seating themselves at the table when there was the sound of a vehicle
outside, with voices, and a great stamping of feet, as some one entered
at the side piazza and came toward the dining-room.

"Mother; it must be mother," Bessie cried, but Neil had recognized a
voice he knew, and said, a little curtly:

"It is not your mother; it is Jack Trevellian," and in a moment Jack
stood in the room, brushing the snow from his coat, and wishing them a
merry Christmas as he shook hands with each in turn.

"Hallo, Jerrold, and Mack, you both here? This is a surprise!" he said,
as he saw the two young men, and something in his tone made the watchful
Neil suspect that it was not altogether a pleasant surprise.

Nor was it. Jack Trevellian had never been able to forget the soft blue
eyes which had shone upon him in London, or the sweet month, with its
sorry expression, which asked him not to play with the mother when he
met her. No matter where he was, those eyes had haunted him, and the low
earnest voice had rung in his ears until at last he had made up his mind
that he would see her once more, and then he would go from her forever,
for it would be madness to ask her to share his small income.

The puny Dick of Trevellian Castle was dead, and Hal was master there.
Only one life now between Jack and wealth and Bessie; but as once before
he called himself a murderer, so he had done again when he heard of
Dick's death, and pulling the wild thought from him he wrote to Hal just
as he had written to Dick, and told him he supposed he would be marrying
now and settling down in the old home, and then there came over him so
intense a longing for Bessie that he resolved upon the visit, feeling
glad for the storm and the cold which would keep him in the house where
he could have her all to himself. How then was he surprised to find
both Neil and Grey Jerrold, the latter of whom he had met many times and
between whom and himself there was a strong liking. But Jack was one who
could easily cover up his feelings, and he greeted the young men warmly,
and held Bessie's hand in his while he explained rapidly, as if anxious
to get it off his mind, that he had gone to the "George" intending to
take a room there as he had done before, but had found it quite shut up,
and so he added, laughingly:

"I have come here bag and baggage, and if I spend the night, as I should
like to, I shall have to ask for a bed, or cot, or crib, or cradle;
anything will do."

Bessie could not help glancing at Grey, who detected the troubled look
in her eyes as she assured the new arrival of her readiness to grant the
hospitality he craved. In Grey's mind there could be no doubt now as to
what Neil would do. "He will offer to share his room with Jack, of
course," he thought, and so, perhaps, thought Bessie; but into Neil's
mind no such alternative entered; first come first served was his motto,
and besides, what business had Jack to come there anyway, uninvited and
unannounced? For his part, he thought it rather cheeky, and there was a
cloud on his face all through the breakfast, nor was it at all dispelled
when, after the meal was over, Jack brought out a lovely seal-skin cap
and pair of seal-skin gloves which he had bought as a Christmas gift for
Bessie, and a handsomely bound edition of Shakespeare for Archie, who he
knew was very fond of the poet.

Now was Grey's time, and the work-box was produced, and Bessie's face
was a study in its surprise and delight, for Christmas presents of any
value were rare with her, and the cap and the gloves were just what she
wanted, and the box was so beautiful that there were tears in her eyes
as she thanked the donors for their kindness, and asked Neil if the
gifts were not pretty.

"Yes, very," he said, inwardly cursing himself for an idiot that he,
too, had not thought to bring anything. "I never do think till it is too
late," he said to himself; "but then, I never have any spare money,
while Grey is rich and Jack is his own master;" and entrenching himself
behind these excuses he tried to seem at his ease, though he was very
far from being so.

In the course of the morning Grey managed to see Jack alone for a few
moments, and immediately broached the subject of the bed, or cot, or
crib which the latter had bespoken.

"I am afraid it will be a crib," he said, "unless you share my room with
me;" and then he told of the north chamber which he had insisted upon
taking on account of his _phthistic_, which required so much fresh air.

"Phthisic!" Jack repeated. "_You_ have the phthisic, when I know you
have climbed the Rigi and Montanvert, and half the mountains in
Switzerland! Why, you are the longest-winded fellow I ever knew."

"Still, I have the asthma so terribly that I could never sleep in Miss
Bessie's room, knowing she was freezing in that north wing," Grey said,
affecting a terrible wheeze.

"Yes, I see," Jack replied, a light beginning to dawn upon him. "I
see--and I am _tisicky_, too, and must have fresh air; so, old chap, if
you'll take me in, I'm yours."

"But you will have to smoke _cubebs_," Grey rejoined. "You remember Mrs.
Opie's 'White Lies' and the 'Potted Sprats?' My asthma has proved a
sprat, and there is a clay pipe at this moment waiting for me in the
kitchen, and pretty soon you will see me puffing like a coal-pit. Do you
suppose they will make me vomit?"

"No doubt of it; they are awful nasty, but I will be a coal-pit too if
necessary," Jack said, ready for any emergency; but this was not
required of him, and only Grey paid the penalty of the white lie, and
smoked cubebs until everything around him grew black except the stars
which danced before his eyes, and he was so dizzy he could scarcely
stand.

The day passed rapidly, and both Jack and Grey enjoyed it immensely,
especially the latter, who conducted himself as if he were perfectly at
home and had known Bessie all his life.

After the dinner, which proved a great success, except that it was not
served, as Neil would like to have had it, by liveried servants instead
of the hobbling Dorothy. Bessie announced her intention of washing the
dishes to save the tired old woman's feet.

"Nonsense, Bessie," Neil said to her, in an aside "You surely will not
do that before Jack and Grey; besides, so much dishwater will spoil your
hands, which are red enough now."

But Bessie cared more for Dorothy than for her hands, and proceeded with
her dishwashing, while Grey insisted upon helping her.

"I know how to wipe dishes. I've done it many a time for Aunt Hannah,"
he said, while Jack proffered his assistance so earnestly that the two
were soon habited in long kitchen aprons, that of Grey's having a bib,
which Bessie herself pinned upon his shoulders, standing on tiptoe to do
it, her bright hair almost touching his moustache, and her fingers, as
they moved upon his coat, sending strange little thrills through every
nerve in his body.

What sport they had, and how awkwardly they handled the silver and the
china, Jack assuming the Irish brogue he knew so well, and Grey the
Yankee dialect, with the nasal twang, which nearly drove Bessie into
hysterics, and made Archie laugh as he had not laughed in years.

Neil was disgusted, and thought the whole a most undignified proceeding,
and wondered what his mother and Blanche would say could they see it,
and if, after all, he had not made a mistake in coming to Stoneleigh
instead of going with them. He changed his mind, however, when, after
the dishwashing was over, and the aprons discarded, and the Irish brogue
and Yankee dialect dropped, he was alone a moment with Bessie, who came
shyly up to him, and laying her hand, red with dishwater, on his arm,
said to him, softly:

"Are you sick, that you seem so sober?"

"No," he replied, taking her hand in his, and drawing her closely to
him, with his arm around her, "I am not sick, but I cannot enjoy
myself--in just the way--Trevellian and Jerrold do. I think them rather
too free and easy for strangers, and quite too familiar with you. Don't
let them make a fool of you."

There was something very pathetic and pleading in his voice, and it went
to Bessie's heart, and when he took her face between his two hands and
kissed her lips, she kissed him back again, and then withdrew from him
just as Jack and Grey entered the room. They had been out for a little
walk after dinner, and had returned, reporting the weather beastly, as
Jack Trevellian expressed it.

"But it is jolly here," Grey said, rubbing his hands, and holding them
to the bright fire. "Just the night for whist. What do you say?" he
continued, turning to Bessie, who, having no objection to the game as
she knew they would play it, assented readily, and the round table was
brought out and the chairs arranged for the four.

Then arose the question:

"With whom should Bessie play?"

"Naturally with me, as I am the eldest and the last arrival," Jack said,
while Grey rejoined, laughingly:

"I don't know about that. I think we will draw cuts for her; the longest
wins," and he proceeded to arrange three slips of paper in his hand.

"Be fair, now. I can't trust you where a lady is concerned," Jack
replied, while Neil maintained a dignified silence, and, when told to
draw first, drew, and lost.

"Your turn next, Trevellian. Hurry up; faint heart never won fair lady.
Suppose you try that one," Grey said, indicating, with his finger, one
of the two remaining slips.

"I shall not do it; there is some trick about it. You have fixed them. I
shall take this," Jack said, and he did, and lost.

"I have won; the lady is mine," Grey cried, exultingly, as he held up
the longest slip of paper.

Then, leading the blushing Bessie to her chair, he took his seat
opposite her, and continued;

"Now I know you English are never happy unless you play for something,
and as none of us, I hope, would play for money, suppose we try for that
knot of plaid ribbon at Miss Bessie's throat. I think it exceedingly
pretty."

There was a gleam of triumph in the glance which Bessie flashed upon
Neil, for she had not quite forgiven him his criticisms upon the ribbon,
which both Grey and Jack seemed to admire, and which she consented to
give to the victor.

"If your side beats you will draw cuts for the prize," Grey said to
Jack; "and if my side beats there is no cut about it, it is mine."

And so the game began, Neil bending every energy to win, and feeling
almost as much excited and eager as if it were a fortune at stake,
instead of the bit of Scotch ribbon he had affected to dislike. And it
did almost seem to him as if he were playing for Bessie herself; playing
to keep her from Grey, the very man to whom he had said he would rather
give her than to any one else in the world, if she were not for him. The
first game was Grey's, the second Neil's; then came the rubber, and
Bessie dealt.

"Oh, Bessie," Neil said, in a despairing voice, when he found that he
did not hold a single trump, while Jack gave out the second time round,
and Grey turned up five points, making six in all.

Suddenly the tide turned and Neil's was the winning side until they
stood six and four, and then Grey roused himself and played as he had
never done before, carefully watching the cards as they fell, knowing
exactly what had been played, and calculating pretty accurately where
the others were, and finally coming off victorious.

"The ribbon is mine, and I claim my own!" Grey said, with a ring in his
voice and a warmth in his manner which brought the hot blood to Bessie's
cheeks, as she took the knot from her throat and presented it to him,
blushing still more when he raised it to his lips and then pinned it
upon his sleeve.

"What a cad he is! I'd like to knock him down, if he were any one but
Grey," Neil thought, and pushing back his chair from the table he said
he had had enough of cards for one night. Whist was a stupid game
anyway, and he never had any luck.

Neil was very quiet the remainder of the evening, though he could not
altogether resist Grey, who was at his best, and kept them all in a roar
of laughter at his jokes and the stories he told of the genuine Yankees
whom he had seen in New England, and the Johnny Bulls he had encountered
in England, and whose peculiarities of voice and expression he imitated
perfectly. Then he recited poetry, comic and tragic and descriptive; and
was so entertaining and brilliant, and so very courteous and gentlemanly
in all he did and said, that Bessie was enraptured and showed it in her
speaking face, which Neil knew always told the truth, and when at last
he retired to his room he could not sleep, but lay awake, torn with
jealousy and love and doubt as to what he ought to do.

The next morning both Grey and Jack departed by different trains, for
the latter was going to the Scottish house where Lady Jane and Blanche
were staying, and then to Trevellian Castle to see his cousin Hal, while
Grey was going another way. And Neil said good-by without a pang, but
Bessie was full of regret, especially for Grey, whom she should miss so
much and to whom she said she hoped she should see him again.

"I am sure you will," he answered. "I am to leave Oxford next summer and
join my Aunt Lucy, who is coming in June for a trip on the Continent.
But before I go home I shall come here again, and I shall always
remember this Christmas as the pleasantest I ever spent, and shall keep
the knot of ribbon as a souvenir of Stoneleigh and you. Good-by," and
with a pressure of the hand he had held in his all the time he was
talking, he was gone, and Bessie felt that something very bright and
strong and helpful had suddenly been taken from her, and nothing left in
its place but Neil, who, by contrast with the American, did not seem to
her quite the same Neil as before.




CHAPTER XII.

THE CONTRACT.


For nearly a week longer, Neil remained at Stoneleigh, growing more and
more undecided as to his future course, and more and more in love with
Bessie, whose evident depression of spirits after the departure of Jack
Trevellian and Grey Jerrold had driven him nearly wild. All the better
part of Neil's nature was in the ascendant now, and he was seriously
debating the question whether it were not wiser to marry the woman he
loved, and share his poverty with her, than to marry the woman he did
not love, even though she had ten thousand a year. Yes, it was better,
he decided at last, and one day when Archie had gone to Bangor and he
was alone with Bessie, who sat by the window engaged in the very
unpoetical occupation of darning her father's socks, he spoke his mind.

The storm, which was raging at Christmas, had ceased, and the winter
sunshine came in at the window where Bessie was sitting, lighting up her
hair and face with a halo which made Neil think of the Madonnas which
had looked at him from the walls of the galleries in Rome.

"There!" she said, as she finished one sock, and removing from it the
porcelain ball, held it up to view. "That is done, and it looks almost
as good as new."

Then she took another from the basket, and adjusting the ball inside,
began the darning process again, while Neil looked steadily at her. Had
Grey Jerrold been there, he would have thought her the very
personification of what a little housewifely wife should be, and would
have admired the skill with which she wove back and forth, over and
under, filling up the hole with a deftness which even his Aunt Hannah
could not have excelled. But Neil saw only her soft, girlish beauty, and
cared nothing for her deftness and thrift. In fact he was really
rebelling hotly against the whole thing--the socks, the yarn, the
porcelain ball, and more than all, the darning-needle she handled so
skillfully. What had the future Mrs. Neil McPherson to do with such
coarse things? he thought, as, forgetful of his mother's anger, he
began:

"I say, Bessie, I wish you would stop that infernal weaving back and
forth with that darning-needle, which looks so like an implement of
warfare and makes me shudder every time you jab it into the wool. I want
to talk to you."

"Talk on; I can listen and work too. I have neglected father's socks of
late and have ever so many pairs to mend," Bessie said, pointing to the
piled-up basket, without looking at the flushed, eager face bending
close to her.

But when Neil took her hands in his, and removing from them the sock and
darning-needle, said to her, "Bessie, I did not mean to tell you, at
least not yet, but I cannot keep it any longer. I love you and want you
for my wife," she looked up an instant, and then her eyes fell before
the passionate face, and she cried:

"Oh, Neil! You are not in earnest! You do not mean what you say. You
cannot want _me_. I am so very poor. I must take care of my father, and
then--there is--there is--oh, Neil, I am sorry if it is wrong to say
it--there is my mother!"

She put the whole hard facts before him at once, her poverty, her
father, for whom she must always care, and her mother, the greatest
obstacle of all.

"I know all that. Don't you suppose I thought it out before I spoke?"
Neil said, drawing her closer to him as he continued: "I am going to
tell you the whole truth about myself, and show you my very worst. I am
a great, lazy, selfish fellow, and have never in my life done any one
any good. I have lived for myself and my pleasure alone. I am not one
quarter as good as Grey Jerrold, or even Jack Trevellian."

At the mention of Grey, Bessie gave a little start, for a thought of him
seemed to cast a shadow over the sky, which for a moment had been very
bright, if Neil really and truly loved her. But the shadow passed as
Neil went on, rapidly:

"I never had any home training; that is, never met any opposition to my
wishes. Everything bent to me until I came to believe myself supreme;
but, Bessie, I know that there is in me the material for a man,
something like Grey Jerrold. I speak of him because he represents to me
the noblest man I ever knew, and I always feel my inferiority when I am
with him, and show at my worst by contrast. You know what I mean. You
felt his power when he was here; the tone of his voice; the way he put
things; the indescribable something which makes him so popular
everywhere, I don't know what it is. I would give the world if I
possessed it. I have watched him many a time at Eton and at Oxford and
elsewhere, when he was surrounded by a lot of London swells, young lords
and sons of earls, who would cut me dead, but who took to the American
at once and made him more than their equal. Once I asked him how he did
it and if it were not an awful bore always to consider others before
himself. I shall never forget the expression of his face as he hesitated
a moment and seemed to be looking far off at something in the past.
Then he said: 'Sometimes it is hard; but long ago, when I was a boy, I
made a vow to live for others rather than myself, to try to make
somebody happy every day with a kind word or act or look, and only
think, if I live to a good old age, how many people's lives will have
been a little sunnier because of me. Suppose I commenced this plan at
fourteen and that I live to be seventy, which is not very old, it will
make over twenty thousand, and that surely ought to atone for a great
deal--don't you think so?--and in a way my life is a kind of atonement.'
That is what he said, or the substance of it, and I have often thought
of it and wondered what he meant by an atonement."

In his enthusiasm over Grey, Neil forgot for a moment what he had been
saying to Bessie, who had listened intently, and who exclaimed:

"Twenty thousand people happier because of him. Oh, Neil, that is worth
more than the crown of England I wish you--I wish we could be like him."

"You _are_ like him," Neil said, coming back to his original subject.
"You make me think of him so much in your sweet forgetfulness of
yourself and your thoughtfulness of others, and, Bessie, I am going to
try to be like him, too, if you will help me, if you will be my wife, by
and by, when I have made a man of myself, and am more worthy of you.
Will you, Bessie, will you promise to be my little wife when I come to
claim you?"

He had her face between his hands and was looking into her eyes where
the tears were shining, as she said to him:

"Neil, you do not know what you ask, or all it involves. I cannot leave
my father, and there is Blanche. You are as good as engaged to her; you
said so in your letter."

"I know I wrote you so," Neil said, "because I wanted to fortify myself
against doing just what I have done, but I shall never marry Blanche
Trevellian; if you tell me no, I shall remain single forever; but you
will not, Bessie. You will not destroy my last chance to be a man. You
do love me, I am sure, and you will love me more when you know all I
mean to do. I shall not separate you from your father. He shall live
with us, and Anthony and Dorothy too; though not here at Stoneleigh,
except it be in the summer when the roses are in bloom. Father has a
small house in London, in Warwick Crescent; he will let us live there,
and--and--"

Here Neil stopped, for he remembered his mother's threat of
disinheritance if he should marry Bessie, and he knew she was capable of
performing it and if she did how was he to live even in that small house
in Warwick Crescent? But Bessie's eyes were upon him; Bessie's upturned
face was between his hands, and poverty with her did not seem so very
terrible. They could manage some way, but he would be frank with her,
and, he continued, at last, "Bessie, I shall not deceive you, or pretend
that mother will receive you at first, for she will not. She means me to
marry Blanche, and will be very angry for a time, and perhaps refuse to
give me my present allowance, so we may be very poor; but that I shall
not mind if you are with me. Poverty will be sweet if shared with you,
who, I know, are not afraid of it."

"No, Neil," Bessie said, getting her face free from his hands, "I am not
afraid of poverty, and I do love you; but--"

"But what?" Neil cried, in alarm, as be caught her hands in his and held
them fast, "You are not going to tell me no? Surely you are not?"

"No, Neil. I am going to tell you nothing as yet. I was only thinking,
that if we are so poor, couldn't you do something? Couldn't you work?"

It was the same question put by the girl Daisy to the boy Archie years
before in the old yew-shaded garden, and as the boy Archie had then
answered the girl Daisy, so the man Neil now made reply:

"I am afraid not, my darling. It is not in the McPherson blood to work,
and I dare not be the first to break the rule."

"Don't you think Grey Jerrold would work if he were poor?" Bessie asked,
and Neil replied:

"Grey is an American, and that makes a difference; every body works
there, and it does not matter."

"Then let us go to America and be Americans, too," Bessie said, but Neil
only shook his head, and replied:

"I could never live in that half-civilized land of equality, where the
future President may be buttoned up in the jacket of my bootblack. I am
an out-and-out aristocrat and would rather be poor and be jostled by
nobility than be rich and brush against Tom, Dick and Harry and have to
bow to their wives."

Bessie gave a little sigh, for this was not at all like Grey Jerrold,
whom Neil was going to imitate; but before she could speak, he
continued:

"We shall pull through somehow in London, and in time mother will come
round when she finds I am determined. So, Bessie, it is settled, and you
promise to be my wife when I can fix things?"

He was taking his consent too much for granted, and Bessie did not like
it, and said to him:

"No, Neil; it is not settled for sure. I can never be yours without your
mother's sanction. Think what you would be taking upon
yourself--poverty, father and me!"

"The _me_ would not be so very bad," Neil said, drawing her closely to
him, and caressing her hair as he talked, advancing argument after
argument why she should consent to a secret engagement, the greatest
argument of all being the influence such an engagement would have over
him, helping him in his new resolution to be a man after the Grey
Jerrold order; for Grey's name was mentioned often in the strange
plighting of vows, and when at last Bessie's consent was won to be
Neil's wife as soon as his mother was reconciled, her mind was almost as
full of Grey as it was of Neil, who, now that she was his, became the
most tender and devoted lover during his remaining stay at Stoneleigh,
and Bessie was happier than she had ever been in her life, though there
was one drawback upon her happiness: she would like to have told her
father, but Neil had said she must not, and she obeyed, wondering to
herself if Grey would have bound her to secrecy.

Grey was a good deal mixed up in Bessie's thoughts after Neil was gone,
and she often found herself thinking:

"More than twenty thousand happier because of him! Could any life be
nobler than that, and why should not I imitate it?"

And then Bessie began the experiment of trying to make somebody happy
every day; and the butcher's boy of whom she bought the meat, and the
girl who brought the milk, and the man of whom she bought their bread,
and the beggar woman who came to the door for cinders and cold bits,
found an added graciousness of manner in the young girl who smiled so
sweetly upon them and interested herself so kindly in their welfare, and
who, in her limited sphere, was imitating Grey Jerrold, and trying to
make a few people happier, even though she could never hope, like him,
to number twenty thousand!




CHAPTER XIII.

THE NEW GREY.


That was what Neil signed himself in the first letter he sent to Bessie
after his return to London, and in which he assured her that he was
instant in season and out of season in his endeavors to be like the
American and make himself worthy of the dearest little girl a man ever
called his wife. He had borne with perfect equanimity his mother's
frequent ebullitions of temper; had read aloud to Blanche for two hours,
when she had a headache, although he wanted so much to go to his club;
and had listened daily, without a sign of impatience, to his father's
tiresome talk upon politics and the demoralized condition of the country
generally. Then he told her how much he loved her, and how a thought of
her and her sweet face was constantly in his mind, inspiring him to a
nobler life than he had hitherto been living.

And Bessie, as she read his letter, felt her love grow stronger for him,
and her face grew brighter and lovelier each day, and there was a ring
of gladness and hopefulness in her voice as she went singing about the
house thinking of the future which stretched so pleasantly before her,
and in which she could be always with Neil, "the new Grey." Sometimes
she thought of the real Grey, who was still at Oxford, which Neil had
left for good. He was not fond of study, and greatly preferred his idle,
pleasant life at home, breakfasting when he pleased and as he pleased,
either in bed or in the breakfast-room, lounging through the morning,
playing duets with Blanche, sorting her worsteds for her, or teasing her
about the grotesque figures she was embroidering and calling shepherd
boys and girls. The comfort and luxury of Trevellian House suited him
better than Stoneleigh, and now that he was engaged and there was no
probability of his marrying Blanche, her society was not half as
distasteful to him as it had formerly been, neither were her eyebrows as
light nor her shoulder-blades as sharp, and he began to think she really
was a good-natured kind of a girl and played splendidly. And then he
remembered with a pang that Bessie did not play at all, except simple
accompaniments to songs, and found himself wondering in a vague kind of
way what people would say to a Mrs. Neil McPherson who had no
accomplishments except a sweet voice for ballad singing and a tolerable
knowledge of French and German, which she had picked up when a child
leading a Bohemian life on the Continent. Bessie was neither learned,
nor accomplished, nor fashionable; but she was good and pure and
beautiful, and Neil loved her with all the intensity of his selfish
nature, and meant to be true to her. He wrote to her, three times a
week, long letters, full of love and tenderness, and of Grey Jerrold,
with whom he corresponded.

Once he tried to tell his mother of his engagement. She had been
speaking to him of Blanche, talking as if everything were settled, and
asking why it were not as well to announce the engagement at once.

"Because," Neil said to her, "I am not engaged to Blanche, and do not
know that I ever shall be. To tell you the truth, mother, I love my
Cousin Bessie better than any woman living, and if I had money of my own
I would marry her to-morrow."

This was a great deal for Neil to say, knowing his mother as he did, and
possibly he might not have said it could he have foreseen the storm
which followed his declaration. What she had once before said to him
upon the subject was nothing when compared with her present anger and
scorn, as she assured him again and again that if he married Bessie
McPherson, she would at once cut off his allowance and leave him to
shirk for himself. That was the way she expressed it, for she could be
very coarse in her language at times, even if she were a titled lady.
Bessie should never enter her house as her daughter-in-law, she said,
and she would not only cut off Neil's allowance during her life, but at
her death would leave what little money she had to some one else--Jack
Trevellian, perhaps, who would represent the family far better than her
scapegrace son, with his low McPherson tastes.

After this Neil could not tell her. On the contrary, he bent every
energy to keep the secret from her, and never again mentioned Bessie or
Stoneleigh in her presence, but devoted himself to Blanche in a
friendly, brotherly kind of way, which kept the peace in that quarter
and left him in quiet. But his thoughts were busy with plans for the
future, when Bessie would be his wife and he disinherited, for her sake.
Once he calculated the possibility of living at Stoneleigh on the meagre
annuity which he knew Archie received, and which would die with him. But
he could not do that, and he called himself a sneak for considering the
matter an instant.

"If there was something I could do which would not compromise me," he
thought. "I might become an inventor, or an author. I could do better at
that, for I have some talent for yarning, they say. Wilkie Collins and
George Eliot make heaps of money with their pens. Yes, I believe I'll
try it."

And so Neil shut himself in his room for some hours each day, and
commenced the story which was to make his fortune. But as Bessie sat for
his heroine and Grey Jerrold for his hero, he became furiously jealous
when he reached the love passages, and tearing up his manuscript in
disgust, abandoned the field of authorship forever.

Suddenly his thoughts turned to the old aunt in America, whom, his fancy
painted as fabulously rich. She could help him, and perhaps if he wrote
her the right kind of a letter she would. And so he set himself to the
task, which proved harder, even, than the story-writing had been. Neil
knew his Aunt Betsey was very eccentric, and he hardly knew how to make
her under stand him without saying too much and so ruining his cause.

"By Jove, I'll tell her the truth, that I want money in order to marry
Bessie," he said, and he took Bessie for his starting paint, and waxed
eloquent as he described her sweetness and beauty, and told of her life
of toil and care and self-denial at Stoneleigh, with her father, whom he
represented as just on the verge of the grave. Then he told of his
engagement and his mother's fierce opposition to it, and the sure
poverty which awaited him if he remained true to his cousin, as he meant
to do, and then he came to the real object of his letter, and asked for
money on which to live until his mother was reconciled, as she was sure
to be in time, when she knew how lovely and good Bessie was. A few
thousand pounds would suffice, he said, as he knew his father would
allow him to occupy a house in Warwick Crescent which belonged to him
and which would save his rent. And then, growing bolder as he advanced,
he hinted at the possibility that his aunt might be intending to make
Bessie her heir, and said if it were so he should be glad to know it,
and would keep the secret religiously from Bessie until such time as he
might reveal it. A speedy answer to this letter was desired, and Neil
closed by signing himself:

"Your very affectionate nephew, Neil McPherson."

He posted the letter himself, and feeling almost sure of a favorable
response, went and bought Bessie a small solitaire ring, such as he
could afford, and sent it with the most loving, hopeful letter he had
yet written to her.




CHAPTER XIV.

MISS MCPHERSON AND THE LETTER.


Nine years had made but little change in Miss Betsey McPherson, either
mentally or physically. As she had been at the Thanksgiving dinner where
we first met her, so she was now, with possibly a little sharper tone in
her voice and a shade more of eccentricity in her nature. As she lived
alone then with her two servants, so she lived alone now, with the same
cook in the kitchen, but not the same housemaid to attend her. Flora had
been married for five or six years to a respectable mechanic, and lived
in a small white house across the common, with three children to care
for--two boys and a girl. This last she had thought to call for her
former mistress to whom she had timidly expressed her intention, asking
if she would be godmother.

"Flo is a fool to saddle her child with a name she hates," Miss
McPherson thought, but she consented to act as sponsor, and wore her
best black silk in honor of the occasion, when Sunday came and she took
her accustomed seat in church.

But her thoughts were evidently not upon the service, for she knelt in
the wrong place, and once said aloud in her abstraction, "Let us pray,"
and there was a twinkle in her round bright eyes, and a grim smile on
her face when she at last arose, and straight and stiff as a
darning-needle walked up the aisle, and took in her arms the little pink
and white baby who was to bear her name. It was a pretty child, and as
she held it for a moment and looked into its clear blue eyes fixed so
questioningly upon her face, there came to her the thought of another
little blue-eyed girl who had come to her on the sands of Aberystwyth,
and the touch of whose hands as they rubbed and patted the folds of her
dress she could feel even now after the lapse of many years. That child
had said to her that Betsey was a horrid name; this child in her arms
would think so, too, and hate it all her life, and when the clergyman,
said, "Name this child," she answered, in a loud, clear voice, which
rang distinctly through the church:

"Bessie McPherson!"

"No, no; oh, no!" Flora gasped in a whisper, "it is Betsey, ma'am; it is
for you."

"Hush! I know what I am about," was whispered back, and so Bessie
McPherson, and not Betsey, was received into Christ's flock and signed
with the sign of the cross, and given to the happy mother happier than
she dared to own because of the change of name.

The next day five hundred dollars were placed in the Allington Savings
Bank to the credit of Bessie McPherson Bowen, and the spinster washed
her hands of the whole affair, as she expressed it to herself. But she
could not quite forget the child, and when on the Monday evening after
the christening she sat by her open fire with her round tea table at her
side, there was a thought of it in her mind, and she said to herself:

"I am glad I did not give it my name. Betsey is not very poetical, and
they are sure to call you Bets when they are angry at you. Bessie is
better and sweeter every way."

And then her thoughts went over the sea after that other Bessie, her own
flesh and blood, of whom she had not heard in years. It was very seldom
that her brother John wrote to her, and when he did he never mentioned
Archie or his family, and so she knew nothing of them except that Daisy
was still carrying on her business at Monte Carlo and was known as an
adventuress to every frequenter of the place. But where was Bessie? Miss
McPherson asked herself, us she gazed dreamily into the fire. Was she
like her mother, a vain coquette and a mark for coarse jests and vulgar
admiration?

"For the girl must be pretty," she said, "There was the promise of great
beauty in that face, and true, pure womanhood, too, if only she were
well brought up."

And then through the woman's heart there shot a pang as she wondered if
she had done right to leave Archie and his child to their poverty all
these years. Might she not have done something for them, and so perhaps
have saved the daughter from sin? The little room at the head of the
stairs was still kept just as it was when she was expecting Bessie.
There was the big doll in the corner, the dishes on the shelf, and the
single bed with its lace hangings was freshly made every month, and by
its side each night the lonely woman knelt and prayed for the little
girl who had come to her on the sands and looked into her eyes with a
look which had haunted her ever since. But of what avail was all this?
Ought she not to have acted as well as prayed? What was faith without
works, and if Bessie had gone to destruction, as most likely she had,
was it not in part her fault? Such were the questions tormenting Miss
McPherson when at last Winny came in to remove the tea things and
brought with her a letter, which she gave into her mistress' hand. It
was Neil's letter, and Miss Betsey examined it very carefully before
opening it, wondering who had written her from London, and experiencing
a feeling that its contents would not prove altogether agreeable.
Adjusting her spectacles a little more firmly on her nose, she opened it
at last, and read it through very slowly, taking in its full meaning as
she read, and commenting to herself in her characteristic way.

Two years before, she had met an old acquaintance from London, who knew
Neil and disliked him, consequently the impression she had received of
him was not altogether favorable.

"A good-looking, well-meaning fellow," the man had said, "but very
indolent, and selfish, and proud, with an inordinate love of money, and
respect for those who have it."

And in this opinion the spinster was confirmed by his letter.

"Let me see!" she said, taking off her glasses, and regarding the fire
intently. "He wishes me to send him a few thousand pounds to enable him
to marry his cousin and live in idleness in his father's house on
Warwick Crescent until his mother is reconciled, and he wishes to know
if I intend to make Bessie my heir. No, my fine London gentleman! If
Bessie ever has a fortune it will not be from me. Now, if Neil wanted
this money to set himself up in business; if he was going to work to
earn his own bread and butter and support his family like an honest man,
I would let him have it cheerfully. But work is the last thing he thinks
about. It would degrade him. Ugh! it makes me so mad!" and she shook her
head fiercely at the fire, as she went on:

"But the girl, if he tells the truth, is the right kind of stuff,
staying at home, caring for her father, wearing shabby clothes, and even
washing the dishes, which I have no doubt hurts him the most. I rather
like this girl, and for her sake I will give Neil a chance, though I
don't suppose he will accept it. There are those cotton mills which I
had to take on that debt of Carson's. They have been nothing but a
torment to me for the want of a capable man to look after them. I will
offer the situation to Neil with a salary of two thousand dollars a
year, and ten per cent. of the net profits, and I will let him have,
rent free, the house which Carson occupied, and will furnish it, too,
and have everything in running order when he gets here with his bride.
That I call a right generous offer, but, bless your soul, do you suppose
he will take it?"

And she interrogated the fire, which made no response, except that a
half dead coal dropped into the pan and went out into blackness.

"Of course he won't," she continued, "for that would be doing something!
But we shall see. I will write the letter to-night," and ringing for her
writing materials the old lady began her letter to Neil, telling him
what she would do for him if he chose to come to America and try to help
himself.

"The work is not hard," she wrote. "It requires more thought, and
judgment, and tact, than anything else, but it will bring you in contact
with some very second-class people--_scum_, if you choose to call them
so--and with some of the excellent of the earth as well for all grades
are represented in the mills, and for what I know, the future Governor
of Massachusetts is working there to-day; but if he is, you may be sure
he has a book somewhere around and studies it every chance he gets, for
in this way our best men are made. If you do not choose to take my
offer, I shall do nothing for you, and Bessie will be a fool to marry
one who does not care enough for her to be willing to work and support
her. I have no intention of making her my heir. My will is made, and I
do not often change my mind. Still, I have a fancy for the girl--have
always had a fancy for her, and if you bring her to me on the terms I
offer, you will never be sorry."

This last Miss Betsey wrote because of the desire which kept growing in
her heart as once it had before, to look again in Bessie's face, to hear
her voice, to feel the touch of her hands; and in short, to have some
one to love and be interested in, as something told her she could be
interested in and love Bessie McPherson.

The letter was sent to Neil, and the same mail took another to a
well-known banking house in London with which Miss McPherson had
business relations. To this house she gave instructions that the sum of
one hundred pounds should at once be forwarded to Archibald McPherson,
who was not on any account to know from whom the money came.

When her letters were gone she began again to build castles with regard
to Bessie, whom she was expecting, in spite of her lack of confidence in
Neil's willingness to accept her offer.

In fancy she furnished the large stone house on the cliff above the
mills, which Bessie was to occupy, and furnished it with no sparing
hand. In fancy she climbed the sleep steps every day, and went in and
out with the freedom of a mother, for such she meant to be to the young
couple, both her own blood, and both seeming very near to her now when
there was a chance of their coming to her and dispelling the loneliness
of her monotonous life. But she kept her expectations to herself, not
even telling them to Lucy Grey, or Hannah Jerrold, her most intimate
friends, both of whom noticed a change in her, but did not guess why she
seemed so much more cheerful and happy, or why she was so often in
Worcester, inquiring the prices of china and glassware, and household
furniture generally.

Once she was very near letting it out, and that was when Hannah was
spending the afternoon with her, and said: "I have received a letter
from Grey, who writes that he spent a day at Stoneleigh and saw your
grandniece Bessie."

"What did he think of her?" Miss Betsey asked, and Hannah replied:

"He thought her the loveliest creature he had ever seen. I do believe he
is more than half in love with her, for I never knew him so enthusiastic
over a girl before."

"Yes," Miss McPherson said, and remembering what she knew Grey to be and
what she feared Neil was, she thought, "Oh, if it were Grey and Bessie;"
and that night she dreamed that it was Grey and Bessie, and that she
tore down the house on the cliff, overlooking the mill, and built there
a palace something after the fashion of Chatsworth, except that it was
more modern in its style and general appearance, and many pairs of eyes
like those seen on the terrace at Aberystwyth looked into hers, and many
little hands rubbed holes in her stuff dress, and many little voices
called her grandma the name she bade them give her in place of auntie.




CHAPTER XV.

FROM JANUARY TO MARCH.


Never had Neil been more gracious or agreeable than during the interval
when he was waiting for the answer to his letter. He felt sure of a
favorable reply and that Bessie would be his before the June roses were
in bloom, and that of itself kept him in a happy frame of mind. He was
very attentive to Blanche and very kind to his mother, and he wrote long
letters to Bessie three times a week, and went to church every Sunday
and gave a half-penny to every little ragged child he met, and felt that
Neil McPherson was a pretty good fellow after all.

At last the letter came, and Neil read it in the privacy of his room,
and, being alone with no one to hear, called his aunt a name which
sounded a little like swearing, and paced up and down the apartment with
the perspiration standing thickly around his white lips, and a feeling
at his heart as if he were not only bitterly disappointed but had also
been insulted by the offer made to him.

"An overseer in some cotton mills!--factories they call them there. Not
if I know myself!" he said. "_I_ stoop to that? Never! The old woman is
a fool," (this with an adjective), "and she evidently thinks she is
doing a big thing. Two thousand dollars a year! Why, that is not much
more than mother allows me now, and I am awfully hard up at times. No,
Bessie, you must wait a little longer until something turns up, as I am
sure there will. An overseer! _I!_" and Neil's voice was indicative of
the scorn and contempt with which he regarded an overseer of cotton
mills, and the vast difference he felt there was between such an
individual and himself.

Neil was very sore and very much depressed, and his depression told upon
his health, and he became so pale and haggard that his mother was
alarmed, and insisted upon his leaving England for a time and going down
to Cannes, in Southern France, where several of her friends were
spending the winter. To this Neil made no objection, and wrote to Bessie
of his plans, and made himself out so great an invalid that Bessie felt
a fear in her heart lest her lover should die and she be left in the
world alone, in case--She did not dare finish the thought, or put into
words her conviction that her father was daily growing weaker, with less
care for or interest in any thing passing around him. This change for
the worse had commenced with a heavy cold, taken soon after the
holidays, and which none of Dorothy's prescriptions could reach. It was
in vain that Bessie tried to persuade him to let her call a physician.

"No, child," he said, "it's nothing. I shall be better in a few days,
when the weather moderates. I do not want a doctor, and if I did we are
too poor. How much have we on hand?"

Bessie did not tell him the exact amount, for fear of troubling him in
his weak, nervous condition.

Their Christmas hospitalities had cost them dear, and there was very
little in the family purse with which to meet their necessities. Just
after Neil's departure there had come a letter from Daisy, who was in
Nice, with some Americans, whose acquaintance she had made in Paris and
whose party she had joined.

    "These American friendships cost a great deal," she wrote, "for they
    stop at the most expensive hotels, and I must have a parlor and
    bedroom in order to keep up appearances, so I really have nothing to
    spare just now; but I send you a five-pound note which I borrowed
    for you from Mr. Jack Trevellian, who came day before yesterday and
    told me of his visit to Stoneleigh. If I am any judge, he is more
    than half in love with you, and when I said I was going to write and
    regretted that I could not send you any money, as I was sure you
    must need it after so much company, he insisted upon loaning me
    twenty pounds, and when I refused so large a sum he made me take
    ten, which I will divide with you. It was very generous in him, and
    when I said I should pay him as soon as possible, he begged me never
    to speak of it, as he would gladly give ten times that sum to one as
    faithful and kind to her father as you are. Jack is a good fellow,
    and there is only one life between him and a, title, I hear. Try for
    him, Bessie; I know you can get him. Write him a little note and
    tell him how kind it was in him to loan me the money. That will be a
    beginning, but you need not say how much of it I sent you; as he
    designed it all for you, he might not like it if he knew I kept
    half. How is your father? The last time I was home I really thought
    he was threatened with softening of the brain, he seemed so sleepy
    and stupid and forgetful. Give him my love, and believe me always
    your affectionate mother,

    "DAISY McPHERSON.

    "P.S.--I hear Lord Hardy has returned from Egypt and is expected
    here. I am glad, for a sight of him will do me good. He is the best
    friend I ever had, and the first, except, of course, your father."

Such, in part, was Daisy's letter, which Bessie read with an aching
heart and cheeks which burned with shame. She wanted money sadly, for
her boots were giving out at the sides, and the butcher's bill was
unpaid, and her father needed wine and jellies to tempt his sickly
appetite and keep up his failing strength. But she would have gone
barefoot and denied herself food for a week sooner than touch the
five-pound note her mother had wrung from Jack Trevellian, her recent
guest.

"It was begged; it is a charity; it burns my hand," she said, as she
held the note between her thumb and finger. "I will not have it in the
house," and the next moment it was blackening on the fire where the
indignant girl had thrown it, together with her mother's letter, which
her father must never see.

Oh, how for an instant Bessie loathed herself as she thought of her
mother and saw in fancy the whole sickening performance at Nice, the
daily jesting and badinage with those people around her--second-class
Americans, she was sure, or they would not take up her mother; but worst
of all was the interview with Jack Trevellian, whose feelings had been
wrought upon until he gave her ten pounds, because of her poverty!

"Oh, it is too horrible; but I will pay it back some time," she said,
and kneeling by the firelight with her hot, tear-stained face buried in
her hands, Bessie prayed earnestly that in some way see might be enabled
to pay this debt to Jack Trevellian.

In her excitement she did not then regret that she had burned the note,
though she knew that it was a rash act, and that it necessitated extra
self-denials which would tell heavily upon her. With strong black linen
thread and a bit of leather she patched her boots; she dressed and
undressed in the cold, for she would allow no fire in her room; she
never tasted meat, or tarts, or sweets, or delicacies of any kind, but
contented herself with the simplest fare, and piled her father's plate,
begging him to eat, and watching him with feverish anxiety as her
mother's dreadful words rang in her ears--softening of the brain! Was
that terrible disease stealing upon him? Would the time come when the
kind eyes which now always brightened when they rested on her would have
in them no sign of recognition, and the lips which spoke her name so
lovingly utter only unmeaning words? It was terrible to contemplate, and
Bessie felt she would rather see him dead than an imbecile.

"But what should I do with father gone?" she said, and her thoughts
turned to Neil, who would surely take her then, even if he took her into
poverty.

And so in a measure Bessie was comforted, and watched her father with
untiring vigilance, and felt that he was slipping from her and that in
all the world there was for her no ray of joy except in Neil's love,
which she never doubted, and without which her heart would have broken,
it was so full of care and pain. And it was just when her heart was
saddest because her father had that morning called her _Daisy_, and when
she corrected him had said, "Yes, but I can't think of your name; words
go from me strangely at times; everything is confused," that Neil's
letter came, bringing her fresh cause for anxiety, and seeming with its
brevity and strangeness, to put him farther from her than he would be in
Cannes, whither he was going.

That night Bessie cried herself to sleep, and was so weak and sick the
next morning that Dorothy persuaded her to stay in bed and brought her
up her breakfast of toast, crisp and hot, with a fresh boiled egg and a
cup of tea which she declared would almost give life to a dead man.

"But, Dolly," Bessie said, "you should not have brought me the egg; they
are two pence apiece, and father must have them all. Can't you keep it
and warm it up for him?"

"Warm up an egg! Bless the child," and Dorothy laughed till the tears
ran. "You can't warm over a boiled egg, so eat it down; it will do you
good, and you are growing so thin and pale. Here is a letter for your
father; but as he is asleep I brought it to you."

Taking the letter, Bessie examined the address, which was a strange one
to her. Evidently it was on business, and as nothing of that kind could
mean anything but fresh anxiety and annoyance for her father, she
resolved to know the contents and, if possible, keep them from the weak
invalid. So she brok