"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!"