Bessie's Fortune

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?"