Bessie's Fortune

"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.