Bessie's Fortune

"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?"